Save Emails to Airtable as Tasks for Your Team

Emails often contain action items that need tracking. Client requests, internal approvals, deadline reminders — they all arrive as emails but need to become tasks. By saving them to Airtable, you give every action item a status, assignee, and deadline your team can act on.

Why Airtable for Email Tasks?

Kanban view — Drag tasks between columns by status or assignee, perfect for daily standups
Calendar view — See all deadlines on a timeline so nothing slips through
Automations — Trigger Slack notifications or reminder emails when due dates approach
Form view — Let external stakeholders submit task requests directly into the same base
Grouping — Group tasks by priority, project, or sender for fast triage

Setting Up Your Task Base

Create an Airtable base with a Tasks table using these fields:

Field	Type	Purpose
Task	Single line text	Email subject (editable to a clear action)
Status	Single select	"To Do", "In Progress", "Done"
Assignee	Single select	Team member responsible
Due Date	Date	Deadline for completion
Priority	Single select	"High", "Medium", "Low"
Source	Single select	"Email", "Meeting", "Manual"
From	Email	Who sent the request
Received	Date	When the email arrived
Notes	Long text	Additional context from the email body

Connecting Your Email (via Quicktion)

Method 1: Email Forwarding

Best for emails that should always become tasks. Set up a Gmail filter to auto-forward them to your Quicktion address. Learn how to set up forwarding to Airtable.

Example: all emails from your project manager should become tasks.

Create a Gmail filter: from:pm@company.com
Forward to your Quicktion destination address
Every matching email automatically appears as a task in Airtable

You can also combine multiple senders in one filter:

from:(pm@company.com OR support@client.com OR orders@vendor.com)

Method 2: Gmail Add-on

Best for selectively choosing which emails become tasks. Open an email in Gmail, click the Quicktion add-on, and save it to your Tasks table. This gives you control over what gets saved — not every email is a task. See our Gmail-to-Airtable integration guide for setup details.

Team Workflow

Daily Standup (Kanban View)

Create a kanban view grouped by Assignee. Each team member sees their column of tasks and can drag items between "To Do", "In Progress", and "Done" during standup.

My Tasks (Filtered Grid View)

Filter: Assignee is me, Status is not "Done". Sort by Priority (High first), then Due Date (soonest first).

Overdue Tasks

Filter: Due Date is before today, Status is not "Done". Sort by Due Date (oldest first). This catches anything that slipped through.

Deadline Calendar

Switch to calendar view on the Due Date field to see all upcoming deadlines at a glance.

Tips

Rewrite the task title — Email subjects are rarely good task names. Change "Re: Fwd: Proposal" to "Send updated proposal to Client X."
Set a due date immediately — A task without a deadline is just a note. Add one when you save.
Use automations for reminders — Set up an Airtable automation to send a notification when a task's due date is tomorrow.
Don't save everything — Be selective. For tracking rather than action, consider a dedicated email archive in Airtable instead.
Keep done tasks — Don't delete completed tasks. They're a record of work done and useful for reviews.

Get Started

Sign up for Quicktion and create a destination linked to your Airtable task base. Use the Gmail add-on for selective task creation or forwarding for automatic capture.

Already using Notion or Google Sheets? See how this workflow compares: Notion tasks | Google Sheets tasks.