Mark outdated workflow nodes on canvas and send a summary with Gmail (add-on)

This is an add-on for the template Check if workflows contain build-in nodes that are not of the latest version

Purpose

This workflow highlights outdated nodes within all workflows of a single n8n instance and places an updated preconfigured node right next to it, so it can be swapped easily.

How it works

The parent workflow checks the entire n8n instance for outdated nodes within all workflows and passes a list of those alongside some metadata to this workflow This workflow then processes that data and updates the affected workflows Outdated nodes are renamed by prepending an emoji (default: ⚠️) - this is also used for future checks to prevent from double-processing The latest version of each outdated node is added to the workflow canvas (not wired up) behind the old one, slightly shifted in position An Email is sent with a list of modified workflows

In the settings it is possible to define:

which symbol/emoji should be prepended to outdated notes whether to include only major node updates or all of them whether to add the new nodes to the canvas or not

Setup

Clone this template to your n8n instance Update the Settings node by setting at least the base URL of your n8n instance Set a recipient in the Gmail node Clone the parent template to your n8n instance and configure it as described in it’s description Add an “Execute Workflow” node to the end of the parent workflow and configure it, so it calls this workflow

How to use

Execute the parent workflow and check your Email Inbox.

All linked workflows should contain one or more updated nodes with an emoji prepended to their names.

Disclaimer

Beware, that major updates can cause migrations of nodes to fail, since their structure can differ. So always compare the old nodes with the newly created, if all parameters still meet the requirements.

Be careful when executing this workflow on a production environment, since it directly modifies your workflows. It is advisable to run this on your testing environment and migrate successfully tested workflows to your production environment using git or manually.