Google Home does not officially support email out of the box, but by integrating IFTTT you can send Gmail messages from the smart speaker. (You’ll also like: Google Home UK review)
This works in much the same way as you would use the service to send a text message from Google Home. So, you’ll need to create the necessary applet(s) in advance for each contact or group of contacts (up to 20 recipients) you want to be able to send a message to.
You’ll also need to specify the email subject line in advance, so we’ve gone with a generic ‘Sent from Google Home’. You will also need to specify the email account the email message will be sent from.
We’ll walk you through the steps of creating an applet to send Gmail messages from Google Home below. You should repeat this process for each contact or group of contacts you are likely to want to message.
Configure IFTTT to send Gmail from Google Home
1. Download and install the free IFTTT app from your smartphone’s app store, then log in using your Google, Facebook or email account.
2. Tap the My Applets tab, then click the + sign at the top right of the screen. In the next screen tap the blue ‘this’ link.
3. Scroll down to and select Google Assistant, then select ‘Say a phrase with a text ingredient’ as your trigger.
4. Google will ask you what you want to say, and this is the command you give Google Home to send the email. We’re emailing messages between two of our own email accounts in order to demonstrate the process, so in this field we’ve entered ‘Text Marie’.
Below this are two optional fields in which you can input variations on that command, such as ‘Send an email to Marie’. The final text field allows you to input a response Google Home should say aloud to confirm it has actioned your request.
Unless you want to send blank messages, you’ll need to insert the $ symbol within your command. You don’t say $ of course, you dictate the message you want sent via Gmail. That might look like this: ‘Email Marie $’ or ‘Send an email to Marie and say $’.
When you’re happy with your commands and Google’s response, tap the tick icon at the top of the screen.
5. Tap the blue ‘+that’ link, then scroll down to and select Gmail. On the next screen choose ‘Send an email’ as your action. IFTTT will require permission to connect to Gmail, so click Connect, then specify which Google account you’ll be using to send email if you have more than one associated with your device. On the next screen tap Allow.
6. Now it’s time to enter your recipient details and subject line. As we mentioned above, you can create these applets for a single contact or a group of up to 20 contacts, so what you do will really depend on what command you created in step 4.
To send an email to a single recipient just enter their email address in the top ‘To address’ field. You can add multiple email addresses here to create a group of contacts, just separate each with a comma.
If you don’t want a group of recipients to know others are included on the email or share their personal email addresses with others they don’t know then you should use the BCC field rather than the ‘To address’ field. If you want to copy in contacts without hiding them there’s also a CC field.
A drawback of using IFTTT to send a Gmail message via Google Home is that you must use the same subject line for each message sent via a single applet, so we’d advise making it something generic such as ‘Sent from Google Home’, which you enter in the Subject text field. Leaving the subject line blank may cause your Gmail message to land in your recipient’s spam folder.
When you’re happy with your contacts list and subject line tap the tick icon at the top right of the screen.
7. IFTTT will now offer up a summary of the applet you’ve created. We recommend disabling the toggle beside ‘Receive notifications when this Applet runs’, then tapping the Finish button. The applet will then be activated, and you can use the Check now button to ensure it’s working properly.
8. Now all that’s left is to check your applet works with Google Home. Be careful not to pause in between your command and the message you want to send. If you do this, Google Home will tell you it doesn’t know what to do with that request yet. Say the entire command as one sentence, for example “Okay Google, email Marie hello.” Now check your inbox.
You can buy Google Home for £129 from the Google Store, Argos, Currys, John Lewis and Maplin.
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- How to connect Chromecast to Google Home
- How to add items to Tesco shopping basket with Google Home
- How to reboot Google Home
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- 100 funny things to ask Google Home
- Google Home vs Amazon Echo
Author: Marie Black, Editorial Director
Marie is Editorial Director at Foundry. A Journalism graduate from the London College of Printing, she's worked in tech media for more than 17 years, managing our EMEA and LatAm editorial teams and leading on content strategy through Foundry's transition from print, to digital, to online - and beyond.