Auto-translate incoming Gmail emails to English with OpenAI GPT-3.5

🌍 Auto-Translate Incoming Emails to English

This workflow automatically detects the language of every new Gmail email and translates non-English messages into English. The translated email is forwarded to your inbox with a clear "[TRANSLATED]" subject tag, and a label is added for easy filtering.

⚙️ How It Works

1. Gmail New Email Trigger

   • Listens for new unread emails in your Gmail inbox.
   • Captures subject, sender, body text, and metadata.

2. Normalize Email Data

   • A Code node extracts the raw content from the email.
   • Strips HTML, normalizes plain text, and prepares data for language detection.

3. Detect Language (OpenAI)

   • Uses OpenAI GPT-3.5-turbo to detect the email’s language.
   • If the language is English, workflow ends.
   • If not, continues to translation.

4. Translate to English

   • OpenAI translates the email body into clear English.

5. Prepare Translated Email

   • Builds a forwarded email containing:
     • Original sender & subject
     • Received date
     • Message ID
     • Translated content (with formatting)

6. Send Translated Email

   • A Gmail node sends the translated message to your inbox.
   • Subject is prefixed with [TRANSLATED] for easy recognition.

7. Add "Translated Emails" Label

   • Automatically tags the original message in Gmail with "Translated Emails".
   • Helps you filter all auto-translated emails later.

🛠️ Setup Steps

1. Gmail Label

• In Gmail, create a new label:
  Translated Emails
• Or update the label in the final Gmail node.

2. OpenAI API Key

• Get your key from platform.openai.com.
• Add credentials in n8n.
• Uses GPT-3.5-turbo (low cost, reliable).

3. Gmail OAuth

• In n8n, connect your Gmail account.
• Requires read/modify permissions.

📧 Example Output

Subject: [TRANSLATED] Meeting Proposal

Body:
🌍 AUTO-TRANSLATED EMAIL (Original Language: ES) 📧 Original From: [email protected] 📅 Received: 2025-08-29 🔗 Message ID: 123456abcdef

═══════════════════════════════════════ TRANSLATED CONTENT:

Hello, I wanted to ask if we can schedule the meeting for next week.

═══════════════════════════════════════

✨ This email was automatically translated by n8n workflow.

⚡ With this workflow, every foreign-language email is instantly translated and delivered to you in English — no manual copy-pasting into Google Translate again.