Airtable to Send Email - Only sending 1 email? 😭

Hi everyone

I’ve been working on this for a few days now and thought I had nailed it, but for some reason my workflow is only sending email to one assigned user, instead of sending email to multiple assigned users.

If anyone could advise it would be greatly appreciated.

Background/process: (1) n8n checks for ‘Last Modified’ on an AirTable table using n8n AirTable Trigger node, (2) it then runs through an n8n IF node to see any of those last modified items in a specific AirTable column has been checked/selected (has a check mark), (3) it then runs through a n8n SET node to set the ‘recipient email’, ’ email subject’, and ‘email body text’, (4) which then goes to the Send Email node and passes the data from (3)… and is then meant to send the emails, but it only appears to be sending to one user (as opposed to the other six users that I have selected/checked in AirTable to receive an email).

Images below.







Email recipient string


email recipient string

Hey @spessex,

How many responses do you receive from the Airtable Trigger node? Looking at the output of the IF node, there’s only one item that gets returned. This one item is passed to the next nodes and hence, only one email is sent.

If you have activated the workflow, you can check the executions from the Executions List (provided you’ve enabled the option to save successful executions).

Yes only one is triggered but I thought that was down to our original discussion where Airtable only brings back the last table row regardless of how many results were run? :slight_smile:

and checking the executions there’s only 1 item triggered aswell… I’m at a loss here.

Live AirTable with selects for multiple users.

also of those select - I’ve just checked - and the Last Modified are all the same time as expected (so the only one recipient that receives and email last modified time is exactly the same as the others).

What’s the Poll Time you’ve configured in Airtable Trigger node? Are the modifications made within that time?

When executing the workflow manually, the Airtable Trigger node will return only one result, and hence send out only one email.

When your workflow is active and running automatically, you might receive multiple items from Airtable (provided the modifications were made within that time). For all the records returned by the node, n8n will process each and every record.

Every minute poll time.

All modifications are made within that minute.

Typical workflow in Airtable, is that (1) I filter the users, (2) then make check/select on the first user, and then immediately copy and paste down to the rest, so if anything all this is done within 10 seconds.

All other info understood Harshil.

I asked a similar questions yesterday, but am I missing something, for example, should there be something after the AT Trigger or IF node that batches all the results together?

I’ve just run another live test and individually selected 5 users and in the execution results it’s only return the last/5th user.

Just a quick thought… Would using the Airtable trigger with a slight pause to allow the other changes to happen then load the airtable dataset with an airtable read not do the job?

So you would use your trigger to start the event then go off and read everything anyway and from there the rest of your process should work.

thanks Jon, so do you mean like in the screenshot below on the AT Trigger? I will give it a go.

I’ve just ran it Jon, and even though it was set for 5 mins, it ran immediately weirdly and unfortunately still only retrieved the 1 result.

Yeah something like that although I did think there was a sleep / wait node so it could need a function to take that approach.

But that looks like it might do it if you need it to run every 5 minutes, A really simplistic view of what I was thinking would be…

I would say though rather than using a trigger on that table what about having the same input but use a second sheet with a box you check to send and use that as the trigger that way you don’t need to worry about the time it takes for everything to update.

Thanks Jon. I’ll try dropping in the AT Read Node like on your diagram.

Also, I could’t quite fathom what you meant when you said “I would say though rather than using a trigger on that table what about having the same input but use a second sheet with a box you check to send and use that as the trigger that way you don’t need to worry about the time it takes for everything to update.”?

Do you mean create a second AT table with the select columns in that which somehow connects to the table I’m trying to utilise now?

Unfortunately, adding the AT Read node didn’t work either. Still bringing back 1 result.

For information though, the AT Read node, brings back ‘all’ the column data for that user, as opposed to just the 5 requested in the AT Trigger node. :slight_smile:

That is odd, When I do a read it returns everything which I think might be the best way to do what you want, It is more data but at least you have the info you need.

My worry with the trigger is depending on how it works internally you could be kicking off the workflow 5 times instead of just once for all 5 items that have changed, They call it a poll though so it could be looking for new changes since the last poll but I am not sure why it would only show the one.

With the trigger I bring in the additional Fields (I think say 6 of them) that I require, where as the ‘Read’ node brings back all of them, almost data overload, as theres 25+ columns, and this additional data unforntately doesn’t appear to help the additional steps in the flow. :slight_smile:

What you mention about the trigger is also a concern of mine and something I’ve questioned the Founder about in Reduce workflow iterations - batch? - #4 by harshil1712

Hey @spessex,

I am creating a sample workflow to test it out. I’ll keep you updated with the results

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Hey @spessex,

I tested with a sample table that contains 324 records. This is what my node looks like:

When executing the node manually, the node returns a random record. In my case which is okay, since I get the fields that I want.

I activated the workflow and tested it thrice. Each time I made changes to a different number of records. The node returned all the records that were modified in that time period (1 minute).

From this test, I am sure that the node is working as expected.

Have you enabled the Execute Once option in the nodes’ setting? If that is enabled, you should disable it. That would be the cause of the issue.