Problem with gmail trigger

[lashny]

Describe the problem/error/question

I’m having trouble getting the Gmail Trigger node to work automatically in my workflow.

Here’s what’s happening:

• When I click “Execute Workflow” manually, the Gmail Trigger works perfectly — it fetches the latest email and the rest of the workflow runs exactly as expected.
• However, when I activate the workflow so that the trigger should listen automatically, nothing happens.
• The workflow doesn’t appear in the Executions list, and the trigger doesn’t react — even though I can confirm that new emails are arriving in the inbox.
• According to the logs, the Gmail Trigger is polling every minute, but it never starts the workflow on its own.
• I’ve tried with various types of emails, labels, subjects — same result.

So in short:
Manual execution = works perfectly
Active trigger = no executions at all

Any ideas what could be wrong? Do I need to configure something else for the polling to work when the workflow is activated?

What is the error message (if any):

no messages

Information on your n8n setup

• n8n version: Version 1.104.1
• Database (default: SQLite): default
• n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main): default
• Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app): docker
• Operating system: debian

[Mookie_Lian]

This is actually weird. I just made this on the go and it works normally. The trigger is set up to poll every minute. I sent myself an E-mail to test from another gmail of course and yes the output is right and the data flows perfectly.

You said the trigger is not working at all. If it was a credentials error it would’ve returned an error in the executions tab. This sounds like a mystery. But my guess is that there is an another trigger in your workflow because when I added an another gmail trigger the workflow did not work at all just as you described.

Can you post your workflow?

[lashny]

Active:

11 min of nothing:

Here’s what’s happening step by step:

1. I send an email to the Gmail address that the trigger is connected to.
2. The email successfully arrives in the inbox and stays unread.
3. Nothing happens — no execution is triggered automatically.
4. The workflow stays idle; there is no entry in Executions.
5. Only when I manually click “Execute Workflow” in the editor:

• the Gmail Trigger picks up the unread email,
• the workflow runs as expected,
• the message is marked as read,

So the issue is not with the logic of the workflow — it behaves exactly as intended when executed manually.
The problem is that the trigger doesn’t start on its own when the workflow is activated and supposed to poll every minute.

[Mookie_Lian]

I literally copied your workflow and pasted in and it worked. I changed nothing at all so you are missing something;

You either have an another trigger node somewhere you don’t see in the workflow or the mails you are receiving are marked as read instantly so the workflow doesn’t see them.

Check your workflow to see if there is a node in the workflow somewhere off-screen.

Delete the rule in the trigger for ‘Unread messages only’ and check again if it works.

As I said before, the same workflow worked in my instance. So the workflow doesn’t have any proplems. Maybe you are sending mails for a different Gmail than the one in your credentials. Or maybe it is about API restrictions although I still believe it has nothing to do with this.

[lashny]

I had the option “Only unread emails” enabled in the Gmail Trigger settings.
Once I disabled that and removed the filter, the trigger started working perfectly — it now executes the workflow every minute as expected.

However, this leads to a new problem:
When the workflow is triggered, it responds to all emails , not just the newest one.

So now my question is:
Why doesn’t the trigger work properly when “Only unread emails” is enabled?

[Mookie_Lian]

This is a step forward. The fact that the workflow worked means there is nothing wrong with your Gmail connections.

However, the reason why the workflow works only when the filter is disabled is because the trigger doesn’t actually see those e-mails you are receiving as ‘unread’.

→ Are the testing messages you are sending to yourself going into ‘Spam’ folder?
→ Do you have a script that marks messages as unread automatically?

My suggestion;

Try IMAP Mail trigger instead. It doesn’t have a poll time, it triggers with every new message immediately. If it doesn’t work too then the problem is not in your n8n instance at all; the messages are being marked as ‘read’ before reaching n8n.