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

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

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

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.

Translate to English
OpenAI translates the email body into clear English.

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

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

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: juan@example.com 📅 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.