RSS + Gmail: daily market brief in your inbox
Your morning “market scan” usually starts with good intentions. Then you end up with 12 tabs, three half-read newsletters, and the same headline repeated in two places. By the time you feel caught up, you are already behind.
This RSS Gmail brief automation hits marketers and operators who need context fast, not another rabbit hole. It also helps founders who want a clean pulse on business and economics without spending the first hour of the day hunting.
You will pull headlines from multiple RSS sources, remove repeats, keep only the last day of news, and get a tidy email that explains what matters and why.
How This Automation Works
The full n8n workflow, from trigger to final output:
n8n Workflow Template: RSS + Gmail: daily market brief in your inbox
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The Problem: Market news takes too long to digest
Keeping up with business and economic headlines is deceptively expensive. You open Reuters, then the Financial Times, then a central bank feed, then Yahoo News “just to check,” and suddenly your “quick scan” is most of your morning. Worse, you often read the same story twice because different outlets syndicate or reframe it. And when you do find something important, you still have to mentally translate it into “So what?” for your work. That constant context switching is exhausting. Honestly, it is also unnecessary.
The friction compounds. Here’s where it breaks down in real life:
- Headlines repeat across feeds, which makes your scan longer and less trustworthy.
- Older stories keep resurfacing, so you waste time re-reading yesterday’s “breaking” news.
- You end up saving links “for later,” then never revisit them because there is no digest to return to.
- Even when you read everything, you still don’t get a clean summary with “why it matters” in plain language.
The Solution: A daily, deduplicated brief sent by Gmail
This workflow turns multiple RSS feeds into one daily email you will actually read. It starts on a schedule (your preferred time and timezone), pulls headlines from sources like the Financial Times and Yahoo News (and you can swap in Reuters, the Fed, WTO, or any public feed). Then it merges everything into one list, removes duplicates using a stable key like the article URL, and filters out anything older than the last 24 hours. To keep the digest manageable, it caps the final list (for example, 25 items). Finally, OpenAI generates a structured market brief with clear sections and a “Why it matters” angle, and Gmail sends a clean HTML email to your inbox.
The workflow begins with a daily trigger, then it collects and cleans your news. After that, it either summarizes the set with AI or handles “no updates” gracefully so you do not get junk emails. The output is a readable subject line and an HTML body that looks like a real brief, not a raw feed dump.
What You Get: Automation vs. Results
| What This Workflow Automates | Results You’ll Get |
|---|---|
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Example: What This Looks Like
Say you track 6 sources and skim about 10 headlines per source. Manually, that’s maybe 5 minutes per site (open, scroll, click, back out), so you burn about 30 minutes before you have any real takeaway. With this workflow, your daily time is closer to 2 minutes: open the email, skim the sections, flag one or two links. The automation runs in the background, and the AI summary arrives already shaped into a brief.
What You’ll Need
- n8n instance (try n8n Cloud free)
- Self-hosting option if you prefer (Hostinger works well)
- Gmail to send the HTML brief.
- RSS feed URLs for your preferred news sources.
- OpenAI API key (get it from the OpenAI dashboard) for summaries.
Skill level: Beginner–Intermediate. You will paste feed URLs, connect Gmail, and test one run end-to-end.
Don’t want to set this up yourself? Talk to an automation expert (free 15-minute consultation).
How It Works
A daily schedule kicks things off. The workflow uses an n8n schedule trigger so it runs at the same time every day, in your timezone. Set it once, then stop thinking about it.
Feeds get collected into one stream. Each source has an RSS Read node (the template includes Financial Times and Yahoo), and a Merge node appends them into one combined list so you can treat the news like a single inbox.
Duplicates and stale items get removed. A Remove Duplicates step compares items on a stable identifier (the URL works well), then an IF condition keeps only stories published in the last 24 hours. If nothing qualifies, a “no updates” handler prevents weird empty emails.
The brief is written and delivered. The workflow transforms the remaining headlines, asks OpenAI for a structured output (subject plus HTML body), formats it, and sends it through Gmail as a clean HTML email.
You can easily modify the sources and the daily limit to match how much news you actually want. See the full implementation guide below for customization options.
Step-by-Step Implementation Guide
Step 1: Configure the Schedule Trigger
Set up the workflow to run on a schedule so it can pull the latest business news automatically.
- Add the Scheduled Automation Start node as your trigger.
- Choose the schedule settings that match your desired digest frequency (daily, weekly, etc.).
- Confirm the trigger fans out correctly: Scheduled Automation Start outputs to both Fetch FT Feed and Retrieve Yahoo Feed in parallel.
Step 2: Connect the RSS Feed Sources
Configure both RSS readers and merge the results into a single feed list.
- Open Fetch FT Feed and set the RSS URL for the Financial Times feed.
- Open Retrieve Yahoo Feed and set the RSS URL for the Yahoo Business feed.
- Confirm both feeds connect to Combine Feeds so the merged list flows into the rest of the workflow.
Step 3: Set Up Processing and AI Summarization
Remove duplicates, limit results, transform headlines, and generate a summary with AI before building the email content.
- In Eliminate Repeats, keep default behavior to drop duplicate feed items coming from Combine Feeds.
- Use Branch Logic Check to decide whether to continue with digest creation or route to Handle No Updates.
- In Cap Results, set the maximum number of items to include in the digest.
- In Transform Headlines, format or normalize the feed item data for summarization.
- Connect AI Compose Summary to generate a concise summary from the transformed headlines.
Credential Required: Connect your OpenAI credentials in AI Compose Summary.
Step 4: Configure Email Formatting and Delivery
Build the email body and send it to your recipients.
- In Format Email Body, structure the summary output into a readable email layout.
- Open Dispatch Email Notice and configure the sender, recipients, and subject line.
- Ensure Format Email Body connects directly to Dispatch Email Notice.
Credential Required: Connect your Gmail credentials in Dispatch Email Notice.
Step 5: Add the No-Updates Handling Branch
Define what happens when no new feed items are found.
- In Branch Logic Check, configure the conditions that determine whether items exist.
- Route the “no items” path to Handle No Updates to safely exit or notify users.
- Validate that the “items found” path continues to Cap Results.
Step 6: Test and Activate Your Workflow
Verify the workflow end-to-end before turning it on for production use.
- Click Execute Workflow to run a manual test from Scheduled Automation Start.
- Confirm that Fetch FT Feed and Retrieve Yahoo Feed run in parallel and merge into Combine Feeds.
- Check that AI Compose Summary generates content and Dispatch Email Notice sends the email successfully.
- Once successful, toggle the workflow to Active for scheduled production runs.
Common Gotchas
- Gmail credentials can expire or need specific permissions. If things break, check the Gmail node credential status in n8n and re-authenticate first.
- If you’re using Wait nodes or external rendering, processing times vary. Bump up the wait duration if downstream nodes fail on empty responses.
- Default prompts in AI nodes are generic. Add your brand voice early or you’ll be editing outputs forever.
Frequently Asked Questions
About 10–15 minutes if your Gmail and feeds are ready.
No. You’ll mostly connect accounts and paste RSS URLs. The included workflow already handles the logic.
Yes. n8n has a free self-hosted option and a free trial on n8n Cloud. Cloud plans start at $20/month for higher volume. You’ll also need to factor in OpenAI API costs, which are usually just a few cents a day for a short brief.
Two options: n8n Cloud (managed, easiest setup) or self-hosting on a VPS. For self-hosting, Hostinger VPS is affordable and handles n8n well. Self-hosting gives you unlimited executions but requires basic server management.
Yes, but you’ll want to change two things. Update the schedule trigger to weekly, then widen the freshness filter from “last 24 hours” to something like the last 7 days. Many people also increase the cap (from 25 to 50) so the weekly brief doesn’t feel thin. If you keep the AI summary, adjust the prompt to request “weekly highlights” and fewer sections.
Most of the time it’s expired authorization or the wrong Google account connected. Reconnect the Gmail credentials inside n8n, then confirm the “Send email” node is using the updated credential. If you are in a Google Workspace, admin policies can block scopes, so check Workspace app access settings too. One more thing: blank emails usually come from mapping the wrong fields, so verify the subject and HTML body are coming from the OpenAI output (or the formatting node) before sending.
In practice, it’s comfortable at 25–100 headlines per run, because email readability becomes the real limit. n8n Cloud limits depend on your plan’s monthly executions, while self-hosting has no hard execution limit (your server resources matter). If you want to scale up, keep the cap and let the AI summarize more aggressively so the email stays short.
Often, yes. This workflow depends on merging many feeds, deduplicating, filtering by publish time, then generating structured HTML, and that kind of multi-step logic gets clunky (and pricey) in simpler tools. n8n also gives you the option to self-host, which is useful if you run this daily and don’t want to count tasks. Zapier or Make can still be fine for a basic “RSS to email” flow, especially if you skip AI. If you want help picking the right setup, Talk to an automation expert.
Once this is running, your “market scan” becomes a single email you can finish before your second coffee. The workflow handles the repetitive stuff so you can focus on what to do with the information.
Need Help Setting This Up?
Our automation experts can build and customize this workflow for your specific needs. Free 15-minute consultation—no commitment required.
