Integrations3 min read

Connecting Gmail

Connect Gmail to Symbi so your agents can read, draft, and send email on your behalf.

Two Ways to Use Gmail

Gmail is one of the few integrations that works on both sides of Symbi:

  • Personal Assistant — your own inbox. Your Personal Assistant can read, draft, and send mail as you
  • Company agents — a shared team mailbox for an agent (e.g., a support agent that handles support@yourcompany.com)

Each person's personal Gmail is isolated — teammates never see each other's mail, and Admins don't have access to the content of personal mailboxes.

Personal Gmail Connection

  1. Open Settings → Personal Integrations
  2. Click Connect Gmail
  3. You'll be redirected to Google to authorize
  4. Review the permissions (read, send, draft, labels) and click Allow
  5. You're returned to Symbi with the connection confirmed

Your tokens are encrypted and scoped to your user account only.

Company Gmail Connection

  1. Open Settings → Connected Apps
  2. Click Connect Gmail
  3. Sign in to the Google account for the shared inbox (e.g., support@yourcompany.com)
  4. Authorize the permissions
  5. The inbox becomes available to your company agents

Only Owner and Admin users can connect a company Gmail account.

What Your Agent Can Do

Once connected, the agent or Personal Assistant can:

  • Send Reply — draft and send replies to a thread
  • Apply / Remove Label — organize messages automatically
  • Get Message / Get Thread — read a specific message or full thread
  • Search Messages — find messages by keyword, sender, or date (opt-in)
  • Send New Email — send a new outbound message (opt-in)
  • Create Draft — draft without sending (opt-in)
  • Create Label — create a new label in Gmail (opt-in)

Opt-in actions are off by default. Enable them per agent from the Behavior tab.

Real-Time Updates

Symbi uses Google Cloud Pub/Sub to receive message notifications in real time. Your agent or Personal Assistant sees new email the moment it arrives — no polling delay. Setup is automatic; no additional Google Cloud configuration is required from you.

Security and Scopes

Symbi requests only the Gmail scopes it needs — reading messages, modifying messages (labels), sending, creating drafts, and managing labels. Tokens are AES-256 encrypted and decrypted only when needed to call the Gmail API.

You can revoke access at any time from Settings in Symbi, or from your Google Account security page.

Tip

If you're trying Gmail for the first time, connect your personal Gmail and ask your Personal Assistant to "summarize my inbox this morning" — it's a fast way to see the integration in action without affecting shared team data.

What's Next?