How to get a Telegram alert for every new Gmail email

Some emails can't wait until the next time you open your inbox — a reply from a client, an alert from a service, a booking. Here's how to make Gmail ping you on Telegram the moment one arrives, using Make.com's free tier. About 10 minutes.

What you'll build

A two-step Make.com scenario: Gmail watches for new mail matching a search you choose → Telegram sends you the subject and a snippet. It checks every 15 minutes by default. At roughly 2 operations per matched email, a few hundred alerts a month fit inside Make.com's free 1,000-operation allowance.

Before you start

• A free Make.com account.
• A Telegram bot. If you don't have one: open @BotFather, send /newbot, follow the prompts, and copy the token it gives you (looks like 123456:ABC-DEF...). Takes a minute.
• Your Telegram chat ID. Send any message to your new bot, then open https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_TOKEN>/getUpdates in a browser and read the number in "chat":{"id": ... }.

Steps

1. In Make.com: Scenarios → Create a new scenario.
2. Add a Gmail → Watch emails module. Connect your Google account when asked.
3. In the module's Query field, put a Gmail search that matches what you care about. Any Gmail search syntax works:
   • from:stripe.com — mail from a specific sender
   • subject:invoice — a keyword in the subject
   • label:urgent — a label you apply with a filter
   • from:client.com subject:re — combine them
4. Set Maximum number of results to something small like 5 so a backlog can't burn through your operations in one run.
5. Add a Telegram Bot → Send a Text Message module. Connect it with your bot token.
6. In Chat ID, paste your own chat ID.
7. In Text, write the message and drop in fields from the Gmail step, e.g. 🔔 New email\nFrom: {{sender}}\n{{subject}}\n\n{{snippet}}.
8. Bottom-left: set the schedule to every 15 minutes (or longer), then toggle the scenario ON.

Common snags

• Nothing arrives. Run the scenario once manually. If Gmail returns 0 results, your query is too narrow — test the exact same string in the Gmail search bar first.
• Telegram error "chat not found". The chat ID is wrong, or you never messaged the bot. Message it once and re-fetch getUpdates.
• It fires for old mail on the first run. Normal — Make marks a starting point on the first execution, then only picks up genuinely new mail.