Gmail Integration

Import emails from Gmail as tasks, take actions on emails, and keep your inbox in sync with Sunsama.

Installation

Go to Settings > Email integration, or open Gmail in the right hand panel of your workspace to connect your Gmail account to Sunsama. Once in your settings page, click “Add Gmail account”.

Currently, Sunsama only allows you to integrate one Gmail account at a time.

If you have multiple Gmail accounts, select the one you want to integrate first. You can add more Gmail accounts later.

Opening emails in Superhuman rather than Gmail

If you use Superhuman as your email client, you can have Sunsama open your Gmail emails in Superhuman rather than Gmail.

Go to Workspace Settings and click “Manage” next to Gmail. You’ll now see a setting called “Custom email client” with a dropdown allowing you to select “Superhuman”.

Now when you open an email within Sunsama, whether that email is in your task list or the integration panel, it will open in Superhuman rather than the default email client.

Browsing and importing emails

Open Gmail in the right hand panel to use the integration (keyboard shortcut Shift G).

Use labels and filters to view the relevant set of emails you wish to browse and import into Sunsama.

Labels

Select which type of Inbox or Label you want to view the emails of.

Filters

Use filters to show or not show the following types of emails:

Archived
Spam and Trash
Already imported into Sunsama

Importing tasks

When you import an email from Gmail into Sunsama, the newly created Sunsama task’s title will be the subject of the email. There are three ways to import from the Gmail integration:

Drag and drop the task from the Gmail panel into your Sunsama task list.
Click on the email in the Gmail panel and click “Add to today” or select a specific date for the task.
To timebox the task directly, switch to calendar view (keyboard shortcut Tab) and drag and drop the email directly onto your Sunsama calendar at the time you plan to work on it. This will add the task to that day in Sunsama and create a working session on your calendar.
Pro-tip: merge an email directly into your daily recurring task for triaging your inboxes, if applicable.

Interacting with imported emails

Gmail email details

The embedded details from Gmail in the Sunsama task will show the thread and conversation of emails. Within these embedded details, you can browse and collapse the emails in the thread.

You can also take several actions on the email in Gmail:

Open in Gmail (shortcut S)
Archive
Move to trash
Mark as unread

Interacting with Sunsama specific task information

Your associated Sunsama task acts like a worksheet for your Gmail email. Inside your Sunsama task, you can add notes, time tracking information, subtasks, and comments, all of which will not sync back to Gmail. Use your Sunsama task to track the minutia of the task itself.

Keeping Gmail in sync with automations

Import and completion automations

There are various actions you can have Sunsama automatically take upon importing the email or completing the task in Sunsama. Click on an action to select it. You can select multiple automation actions.

Best practices

A well configured Gmail automation will allow you to keep your email threads in sync with your existing email triage workflow and not show you an email that’s been delegated to Sunsama in your primary view inside of Gmail (or your email client).

Let’s say you follow a simple “Inbox Zero” methodology where all your emails that require action are in your “Inbox” view and when no further action is needed you “Archive” them. In this case, you might set up your automations like this:

Set your “Import Automations” as follows: (1) “Mark as read” (2) “Remove a label” and choose the label “Inbox”. If you do this, once you delegate an email into Sunsama, it will no longer also show in your inbox in your email client.
Set your “Completion Automations” to “Archive”.

If you want to keep track of emails that are delegated into Sunsama you can add additional automation steps:

In “Import Automations” add “Apply a label” and select a label like “In progress” (you’ll need to make this in Gmail first).
Add the “Completion Automation” for “Remove a label” and select the same label as above.

Now, in your Gmail inbox, you can navigate to the “In progress” label and see all the emails you’ve moved into Sunsama but haven’t yet checked off.

Troubleshooting and FAQ

All my emails aren’t loading or showing

Please try the following:

Click “Filter” and make sure to show archived and imported emails.
Ensure you don’t have multiple labels simultaneously selected. Sunsama will only show emails that match all selected labels.

Do the actions I take on the email in Sunsama happen in Gmail?

Yes, if you “Archive”, “Move to Trash”, or “Mark as Unread” an email within Sunsama, that action is taken on the email in Gmail.

Why do I see more emails in my Gmail folder than should be there?

Check in the “Archived” toggle in your filter settings. If you are viewing archived emails, you will see any emails that are in your selected folder or have been in that folder that are now archived.

Error message: “Speak with your GSuite administrator”

If you are seeing this error message in your Gmail Integration: “It looks like you do not have the Gmail service enabled. Please speak with your GSuite administrator” you can try these reset steps:

Sign out of Sunsama completely
Go to Google’s Account Permissions and Revoke Sunsama’s Permissions
Sign back into Sunsama from app.sunsama.com/signup
When prompted with Google permissions, make sure to check off the check box granting access to email
Re-add the Gmail integration

If you run into any issues, please write to us at support@sunsama.com with a screen recording and/or more details.

Please re-add the Gmail integration

This can happen when Sunsama’s authorization to Gmail is revoked, this can happen for a variety of reasons like changing your password.

The first thing to try is to simply re-add the Gmail integration:

Click the “Re-add Gmail Account” button you see inside the Gmail panel.
When you see the Google permissions screen be sure to check off any check boxes related to providing email access.

If that doesn’t work, you can attempt a full reset of your Gmail permissions, like this:

Sign out of Sunsama completely
Go to Google’s Account Permissions Page and Revoke Sunsama’s Permissions
Sign back into Sunsama from app.sunsama.com/signup
When prompted with Google permissions, make sure to check off the check box granting access to email
Re-add the Gmail integration from your workspace settings

Can I open emails in Superhuman rather than Gmail?

Yes. Change your email client to Superhuman by going to your Settings and navigating to the Email page.