Auto-Summarize New Google Drive Documents into Google Sheets

Google Drive trigger → Google Docs content extraction → OpenAI summarization → Google Sheets append

Who

Operators or content managers who need automatic summaries when team documents are updated

You get

When a new Google Doc is uploaded, automatically extract full text, generate a summary, and write the summary with document info to a Google Sheet

You need

n8n · google-drive · google-docs · google-sheets

Steps

1. Configure Google Drive Trigger

   Add a Google Drive Trigger node in n8n. Set Event to fileCreated, Trigger On to specificFolder, and enter the Google Drive folder URL or ID in folderToWatch. Set poll interval to everyMinute. Save and activate the workflow.

2. Extract Document Content

   Add a Google Docs node, connected to the trigger. Set Operation to get, and use expression '={{ $json.id }}' for documentURL to dynamically receive the file ID from the previous step. This node returns the document's plain text content.

3. Generate Summary with AI

   Add an OpenAI node (Generate Summary AI), connected to the Google Docs node. Select model gpt-4o-mini. In Messages, set the user message using the following prompt template to pass document content into the model.

   Execution prompt · Source text。OpenAI node Messages field content value

   Copy prompt

   =Summarise the below content
    {{ $json.content }}

4. Write to Google Sheets

   Add a Google Sheets node, connected to the OpenAI node. Set Operation to append, select the target spreadsheet and Sheet1. Define three columns in Columns: Name (from Google Drive node's lastModifyingUser.displayName), Email (from lastModifyingUser.emailAddress), Summarise Conetent data (from OpenAI node's $json.message.content). Save and test. [First-test safety] Before the first test, point the Google Sheets append at a test spreadsheet, or temporarily disconnect that node; reconnect production only after the summary looks correct (wrong sheet = data pollution).

You are an n8n workflow setup assistant. The user wants to replicate an automation that summarizes new Google Drive documents and saves the summary to Google Sheets. First confirm the user has: 1) a running n8n instance; 2) OAuth2 credentials for Google Drive, Google Docs, and Google Sheets; 3) the target Google Sheet document ID. Then guide them to import the template, configure folder monitoring, verify node connections, and remind them to check the OpenAI node's API key.