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Best answer

Gmail Zap not triggering for all emails only working for some

  • 12 October 2021
  • 18 replies
  • 1215 views
K

My trigger is new email matching search to trigger a bulk text message through text magic. It’s been hours since these emails came through in the evening and no trigger took place on all 3. 

Search Email

“subject:starfish

in:inbox

from:reports@pushmetrics.io”

the email went through at 12:33pm and the text’s went out properly.  Then another email with the same subject gets sent at 5pm and nothing happen. I tried two more times and again no Zap created and no Text.  It was working twice a day all last week. Can anyone explain this? Customer support takes forever and I’m finding rarely has an answer for technical problems. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post has been edited by a moderator to remove sensitive information. Please remember to obfuscate any personally identifiable information prior to posting as this is a public forum. 

icon

Best answer by SamB 13 October 2021, 11:21

View original
This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

18 replies

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @kealyc 

FYI: This Gmail trigger is NOT instant, and depending on your Zap plan can take from 1-15 minutes to trigger.

 

 

Not all my emails are triggering my Zap

Each Gmail trigger has a specific length of time in the past that it can "see" emails in your Gmail account. If the email in question is older than the time limit, the trigger won't be able to detect that email.

These limits are as follows:

  • New Labeled Email - Unlimited
  • New Starred Email - 2 days
  • New Email - 1 hour
  • New Email Matching Search - 1 hour
  • New Thread - 1 hour
  • New Attachment - 1 hour

Please note that if you would like to trigger a Zap for starred emails that entered your inbox more than two days ago, you can use the New Labeled Email trigger and specify the STARRED label from the dropdown when setting up your Zap.

 

 

Too many simultaneous connections

Gmail currently has a limit of 15 simultaneous connections per account. This effectively means only 15 Gmail trigger Zaps can be used at once assuming no other service is accessing Gmail on your behalf. This is a restriction from Gmail's API documented here. There are no known work arounds except some good old fashioned creativity! If you come up with something awesome, let us know.

To audit what other apps or services might be connecting to your Gmail account and remove any of them that may be unnecessary, check out this link

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
K

Hi @kealyc 

FYI: This Gmail trigger is NOT instant, and depending on your Zap plan can take from 1-15 minutes to trigger.

ok but it's just not triggering at all in the evenings. i’ve waited hours let alone 1-15 minutes since the emails came through. 

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc

Can you post screenshots with how your Zap trigger step is configured?

From the screenshot, it’s unclear if those emails are in the Inbox.

Check that the Zap is still ON.

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
K

@kealyc

Can you post screenshots with how your Zap trigger step is configured?

 

Check that the Zap is still ON.

yes it’s been on like it was at 12:33pm when it worked. I only have 1 zap active.  

‘

 

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc

Try this all on 1 line:

subject:"starfish" in:"inbox" from:"reports@pushmetrics.io"

 

 

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc 

Here’s a trick on how to test your Zap manually w/o having to wait:

 

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
K
You can see no zaps are running despite multiple emails coming through that match the trigger criteria perfectly. 
Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc

Are the emails going into the INBOX?

Or is there some other Gmail Filter rule moving these?

Probably best to open a ticket with Zapier Support: https://zapier.com/app/get-help

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
K

@kealyc

Are the emails going into the INBOX?

Or is there some other Gmail Filter rule moving these?

Probably best to open a ticket with Zapier Support: https://zapier.com/app/get-help

So I have a rule where it goes to a subfolder in the Inbox to “push-metrics”.  

 

I tried changing the criteria to match that label:inbox-push-metrics but it still didn’t work. I tried with quotes and without.  It’s weird though because this was all working fine last week.  I reached out to support but they are just like, we reported the problem but we don’t have an ETA on a solution and i haven’t heard back in 8 hours.  

 

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc

Check your Gmail app connection here: https://zapier.com/app/connections

Maybe try a different Gmail trigger:

 

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
K

@kealyc

Maybe try a different Gmail trigger:

 

thanks for your persistence.  I tried setting up a labeled email and selected the Push Metrics options but I’m getting another error.  

 

Now the weird thing was when i manually when to the apps page to Gmail and Clicked “run” it actually did scan my new emails and sent out a ton of texts at the same time.  But it only works when i click it manually it’s not working automatically on a schedule. 

 

 

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc

Best is to have Zapier Support troubleshoot further by looking into the logs which I don’t have access to.

You can also reference the available help articles: https://zapier.com/apps/gmail/help

If you are using a free Gmail account, there are restrictions to be aware of:

https://zapier.com/help/doc/common-problems-with-gmail#my-gmail-zap-has-an-error-about-connecting-to-google-approved-or-not-approved-apps

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
K

@kealyc

Best is to have Zapier Support troubleshoot further by looking into the logs which I don’t have access to.

You can also reference the available help articles: https://zapier.com/apps/gmail/help

If you are using a free Gmail account, there are restrictions to be aware of:

https://zapier.com/help/doc/common-problems-with-gmail#my-gmail-zap-has-an-error-about-connecting-to-google-approved-or-not-approved-apps

yeah it’s not a free account. alright thanks for trying. this is frustrating support@zapier takes forever to get back to me and when they do they rarely have a solution. 

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc

FYI: I’ve flagged this for Zapier Community Admins to hopefully escalate with Zapier Support.

 

One more thing to test: Try putting the search criteria into Gmail to see if emails are found.

subject:"starfish" in:"inbox" from:"reports@pushmetrics.io"
⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
K

Alright yeah it looks like it shows up in the search.  I just got a huge glut of texts all at once again which would not be acceptable for our client.. this just really bumming me out. 

 

 

 

 

K

Yeah it’s only working when i manually click “run” but i need it to be automatic. 

 

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@kealyc

Alternatively, you could try using Gmail New Email as Step 1 and a Filter as Step 2 to check the desired conditions.

 

Otherwise, at this point, you’ll need to get in touch with Zapier Support for further troubleshooting: https://zapier.com/app/get-help

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hey @kealyc,

I’m really sorry you’re running into such trouble with your Zap here, that’s not what we want at all! :(

I’ve passed the thread here over to Support so they can reference all the troubleshooting that’s been discussed here their investigations into the Zap not triggering. 

I can see that our Support Team previously added you to a bug report for the New Email Matching Search trigger not triggering when it should have done. There’s no ETA on when that issue will be resolved but we’ll definitely email to let you know as soon as it is.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to replicate this issue in my own Gmail and Zapier account and I’m not running into the same issues. My Zap takes a few minutes before triggering but it does so automatically. I thought it might be to do with the sub folder (sub-label) which was moving the emails but I added a similar filter in Gmail to move emails into a sub label and they triggered the Zap fine.

One theory I had here is that if the Zap polls for new emails and sees the email before Gmail has applied the label then it might ignore it as it doesn’t match and not trigger on it, but equally it could just be that the behaviour your Zap is experiencing is due to the bug Support identified.

I would recommend switching to using the New Labeled Email trigger as Troy suggested for the time being as that trigger does not appear to be affected by the same bug. With the error that appeared, it looks like something may have glitched when switching the trigger event over. Refreshing the page when you see that error should get rid of it, and then allow you to test the step and turn the Zap on.

Can you give that a try and let us know if you have better success with that trigger? 

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