Google Workspace is where your team spends 80% of their workday — Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Docs, Drive, and Slides. OpenClaw connects to all of them and turns routine work into automated agent workflows. This is the complete guide.

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Why automate Google Workspace?

Google Workspace is powerful, but the daily grind is real:

• Gmail: 50+ unread emails every morning, half need responses
• Calendar: Back-to-back meetings, no prep time, scheduling conflicts
• Sheets: Data cleanup, weekly reports, pivot tables — repetitive work
• Docs: Meeting notes, project briefs, status reports — same template every time
• Drive: Files scattered everywhere, duplicates, sharing permissions to manage
• Slides: Presentations to build from scratch each week

OpenClaw automates each of these through a single AI agent that lives in your chat (Telegram, Discord, Slack, or WhatsApp). One agent. Six Google tools. Zero context switching.

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How it works

OpenClaw connects to Google Workspace through two paths:

Path 1: Google Service Account (API direct)

You create a Google Service Account, enable the necessary APIs (Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Docs, Drive, Slides), and share your resources with the service account email. OpenClaw uses the service account key to authenticate.

Best for: Direct API access, custom workflows, and environments without the Codex harness.

Required APIs:

• Gmail API
• Google Calendar API
• Google Sheets API
• Google Docs API
• Google Drive API
• Google Slides API

Path 2: Codex Native Plugin

If you're running OpenClaw with the Codex harness, install the Google Drive plugin from the Codex marketplace. This gives you access to Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides through Codex's native app integration. For Gmail and Calendar, use the respective Codex plugins.

Best for: Teams already using Codex with ChatGPT subscriptions. Simpler setup, OAuth handled by Codex.

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Setup guide

Step 1: Create a Google Service Account

1. Go to Google Cloud Console
2. Create a new project (e.g., "OpenClaw Agent")
3. Navigate to APIs & Services > Library
4. Enable all six APIs listed above
5. Go to IAM & Admin > Service Accounts
6. Create a service account with a descriptive name (e.g., "openclaw-agent")
7. Download the JSON key file
8. Store it securely on your server (e.g., ~/.config/google-openclaw/credentials.json)

Step 2: Share resources with the service account

For each Google resource you want the agent to access:

• Gmail: No sharing needed — the service account can send and read email through the API if you enable domain-wide delegation or use OAuth
• Calendar: Share your calendar with the service account email
• Sheets/Docs/Slides: Share individual documents or folders with the service account email
• Drive: Share the root folder or specific subfolders

Step 3: Configure OpenClaw

Reference the service account key in your OpenClaw configuration. The exact config depends on your setup — you can use environment variables, config files, or pass the key path as a tool parameter.

Step 4: Test the connection

Ask the agent to perform a simple read operation:

Read the first 5 rows of my "Test Sheet" spreadsheet and tell me what's in it.
          

If the agent returns data, the connection works.

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Individual tool guides

For each Google Workspace tool, we've written a dedicated guide with 5 workflows:

📧 Gmail

Automate Gmail with OpenClaw — Email classification, auto-replies, inbox triage, follow-up tracking, and daily digest.

📅 Google Calendar

Automate Google Calendar with OpenClaw — Daily briefings, smart scheduling, meeting prep, conflict detection, and schedule optimization.

📊 Google Sheets

Automate Google Sheets with OpenClaw — Data cleanup, weekly reporting, pivot tables, multi-sheet merging, and data validation.

📝 Google Docs

Automate Google Docs with OpenClaw — Meeting notes, document summarization, template generation, document review, and multi-document digests.

📁 Google Drive

Automate Google Drive with OpenClaw — File organization, smart search, sharing automation, duplicate detection, and weekly audits.

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Cross-tool workflows

The real power of Google Workspace automation isn't in individual tools — it's in combining them:

Weekly Report Workflow

Every Friday at 4 PM:

          1. Read data from "Sales Log" Google Sheet
          2. Calculate weekly totals and growth rate
          3. Create a new Google Doc with the report (formatted)
          4. Save it in the "Weekly Reports" folder on Drive
          5. Create a calendar event on Monday at 9 AM to review it
          6. Send the summary to my Telegram with a link to the Doc
          

Meeting Lifecycle Workflow

When a meeting with external attendees appears on my calendar:

          1. 30 minutes before: Read the calendar event details
          2. Search Gmail for threads with the attendee
          3. Search Drive for documents related to the meeting topic
          4. Compile a brief in a new Google Doc
          5. Send the brief to my Telegram 15 minutes before the meeting
          6. After the meeting: Ask me for quick notes and create a formatted Doc
          7. Save it in "Meeting Notes" folder on Drive
          

Onboarding Workflow

When I say "onboard [name]":

          1. Create a folder for the new team member in Drive
          2. Create a Google Doc "Onboarding Checklist" from template
          3. Share the folder and doc with the new person (as Viewer)
          4. Create calendar events for their first-week meetings
          5. Draft a welcome email in Gmail
          6. Send me the links and the draft for review
          

Content Pipeline Workflow

Every Monday at 9 AM:

          1. Read "Content Ideas" Google Sheet for this week's topics
          2. For each topic:
             a. Create a Google Doc with the draft outline
             b. Research keywords and add them to the doc
             c. Create a Google Sheet tab with SEO checklist
          3. Save all docs in "Content/[Week]" folder on Drive
          4. Send me a summary in Telegram with links to all created docs
          

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The hybrid skills pattern

The most powerful setup combines OpenClaw skills with Google Workspace APIs:

1. Write an OpenClaw Skill (in workspace/skills/) that describes how you want Google Workspace tasks done — your naming conventions, folder structure, report formats, etc.
2. Connect the Google APIs (service account or Codex plugin) so the agent has the tools.
3. The agent reads the skill for procedure guidance, then uses the Google APIs for execution.

Example skill structure:

# Weekly Report Skill

          ## When to use
          Every Friday at 4 PM or when I ask for "the weekly report"

          ## Procedure
          1. Read "Sales Log" sheet, filter by this week's dates
          2. Calculate: total revenue, deal count, avg deal size, WoW growth
          3. Create a Google Doc titled "Weekly Report - Week [N]"
          4. Format: H1 title, H2 sections for each metric, table for daily breakdown
          5. Save to "Reports/2026/" folder on Drive
          6. Send 3-line summary to Telegram with link to doc

          ## Formatting rules
          - Numbers: right-aligned, currency in USD
          - Dates: YYYY-MM-DD
          - Growth: green if positive, red if negative
          

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Security considerations

• Service account access: The service account only has access to resources you explicitly share. Don't share your entire Drive root — share specific folders.
• Sharing permissions: The agent follows your instructions. For sensitive operations (sharing externally, deleting files), set up approval prompts.
• Data privacy: The agent reads your Google data to process it. The data stays in your agent's context — it's not sent anywhere except to your configured LLM provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.).
• Audit trail: OpenClaw logs all tool calls. You can review what the agent did at any time.

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FAQ

Do I need a separate service account for each Google tool?

No. One service account can have access to all six Google APIs. You just need to enable each API and share the relevant resources.

Can I use my personal Google account?

Technically yes (via OAuth), but a service account is recommended. It's more secure, doesn't require interactive consent flows, and works with scheduled/cron tasks.

Can multiple team members use the same agent?

OpenClaw is designed as a personal agent (one user). For team-wide Google Workspace automation, each team member should have their own OpenClaw instance with their own service account. Shared resources (team folders, shared calendars) can be accessed by multiple service accounts.

Can I use this without a ChatGPT subscription?

Yes. If you're using the service account path (API direct), you don't need a ChatGPT subscription. You only need a ChatGPT subscription if you're using the Codex native plugins.

How much does it cost?

• Google Workspace APIs: Free for standard usage (up to 1 billion requests/day per API)
• OpenClaw: Free and open-source
• LLM costs: $20-50/month for typical usage (via your OpenAI or Anthropic API key)
• GolemWorkers managed hosting: Flat platform fee (optional)

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Related articles

• Automate Gmail with OpenClaw
• Automate Google Calendar with OpenClaw
• Automate Google Sheets with OpenClaw
• Automate Google Docs with OpenClaw
• Automate Google Drive with OpenClaw
• OpenClaw vs n8n: Self-Hosted AI Automation Compared
• How to Use Codex Native Plugins Inside OpenClaw