A lot of how your organisation actually works is documented in email threads - customer-facing explanations, internal process discussions, answers to questions that come up repeatedly. That content is valuable. It is just scattered across inboxes where it is hard to find and impossible to scale.

Connecting Gmail as a source lets your agent learn from that email knowledge. The answers your team has written out before become available to every customer who asks, automatically, without anyone having to write them again.

In this article, you'll learn:

• What gets synced when you connect Gmail as a source
• How to connect your Gmail account 
• How to manage the connection

What Gets Connected

When you connect Gmail as a knowledge source, Outlearn syncs messages and conversations from the channels or threads you authorize. Your data stays in Gmail - Outlearn reads it, it never modifies or moves it.

Note: Connecting Gmail as a knowledge source is different from deploying your agent inside Gmail. This article covers using Gmail as a source only. To deploy your agent to Gmail, see Setting Up the Email Channel.

How to Connect Gmail

1. Go to the Sources tab.
2. Click + Add Knowledge.
3. In the Add Knowledge Sources modal, click Team Chats in the left panel.
4. Select Gmail.
5. Log in to your Gmail account when prompted and authorize Outlearn to access your messages.
6. Follow the on-screen steps to select which channels or conversations to sync and set accessibility.

After Connecting

Once connected, Gmail will appear in your Sources list and Outlearn will keep it in sync automatically.

From the Sources list you can:

• Change accessibility using the dropdown next to the source.
• Toggle it on or off using the In Use toggle.
• Resync manually using the three-dot menu.
• Delete the connection using the three-dot menu.

Best Practices

• Be selective about which channels you connect - not every conversation is useful as a knowledge source. Focus on channels where team members share answers, guides, or resolved issues.
• Set accessibility to Internal - team chat content is almost always internal knowledge not suited for public-facing agents.
• Avoid connecting channels with high noise-to-signal ratios (e.g., general chat, off-topic channels) as this can dilute answer quality.