Email (Trigger)

Beta Feature: This node is currently in beta. Features and functionality may be subject to changes.

Auto-Forward Inbox Rules: If you set up an auto-forward inbox rule (e.g. Exchange or Gmail) to forward emails to the provisioned email address, please ensure:
1. The provisioned email address is correct — an incorrect address will cause every forwarded email to fail, triggering error notifications back to your mailbox.
2. The rule has specific conditions (e.g. filter by sender, subject, or folder) — a rule without conditions will forward every email in your mailbox, including error notifications sent back by the system, which may cause unintended behaviour.

The Email Trigger Node enables your workflow to start automatically when an email is received at a provisioned email address. When someone sends an email to the trigger address, the workflow is invoked with the email content — including subject, body, recipients, and any attachments — as the workflow input.

How Does It Work?

The Email Trigger Node provisions a unique email address for your workflow. When an email is sent to this address, the system parses the email and starts a new workflow execution with the parsed email data as input.

Setup Steps:

Click on Select Input
Choose Email as the trigger node
Open the trigger node Settings to view the provisioned email addresses
Copy the Staging Email Address or Production Email Address depending on your environment
Use this email address as the recipient (“To” field) in the system or process that should trigger your workflow
Publish your workflow in OPUS to activate the email trigger
Each email sent to the provisioned address will now trigger the workflow automatically

Email Trigger Node Settings

Email Addresses

The trigger node provisions unique email addresses for each environment:

Staging Email Address: Used for testing in the staging environment
Production Email Address: Used for live production workflows

Copy the email address and place it in the “To” field of an email to trigger the workflow.

Email Address Format:

{prefix}+{namespace}+{project}+{workflow-id}+{branch}@{domain}

Each segment is sanitised (lowercased, special characters replaced with hyphens) to form a valid email address.

Output

When an email is received, the Email Trigger Node outputs the parsed email data in the following structure:

{
  "email": {
    "subject": "Sample Email Subject",
    "messageId": "<example@mail.gmail.com>",
    "from": "sender@example.com",
    "to": ["recipient@example.com"],
    "cc": [],
    "bcc": [],
    "text": "This is the plain text body of the email.",
    "attachments": [
      {
        "filename": "photo.jpeg",
        "contentType": "image/jpeg",
        "size": 179761,
        "base64Content": "dGhpcyBpcyBhbiBpbWFnZSBmaWxl"
      },
      {
        "filename": "letter.pdf",
        "contentType": "application/pdf",
        "size": 73927,
        "base64Content": "dGhpcyBpcyBhbiBwZGYgZmlsZQ=="
      }
    ],
    "date": "2026-03-20T10:30:00.000Z"
  }
}

Output Fields:

Field	Type	Description
`email.subject`	String	The email subject line
`email.messageId`	String	The unique message ID assigned by the email server
`email.from`	String	The sender’s email address
`email.to`	Array	List of recipient email addresses
`email.cc`	Array	List of CC recipient email addresses
`email.bcc`	Array	List of BCC recipient email addresses
`email.text`	String	The plain text body of the email
`email.attachments`	Array	List of file attachments (see below)
`email.date`	String	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the email was sent

Attachment Fields:

Field	Type	Description
`filename`	String	The name of the attached file
`contentType`	String	The MIME type of the file (e.g., `image/jpeg`, `application/pdf`)
`size`	Number	The file size in bytes
`base64Content`	String	The file content as a base64-encoded string

Downstream nodes can access the email data using template expressions (e.g., {{{ data.email.subject }}}, {{{ data.email.from }}}, {{{ data.email.attachments.[0].filename }}}).

Mock Output

The Email Trigger Node supports mock output for simulation. When mock output is enabled, the node uses the configured mock data instead of waiting for an actual email. This allows you to test your workflow without sending real emails.

The default mock output includes sample email data with subject, body, recipients, and example attachments. You can customise the mock data to match your expected email format.

When to Use It?

Use Email Trigger Node when:

You need to start a workflow based on incoming emails (e.g., support requests, notifications, approvals).
You want to process email attachments automatically (e.g., extracting data from attached documents).
You are integrating with systems that send notifications via email and want to automate downstream actions.
You need a simple trigger mechanism that doesn’t require webhook configuration — just send an email.

Tip: Combine with Function Nodes to parse email body content, or use the AiSay Node to extract structured data from email attachments.

Email Approval

Expression