Gmail Integration
The Gmail integration gives Barvol read access to your inbox so it can surface customer context, detect feedback signals, and help you stay on top of important conversations without leaving your workspace.
What Barvol reads from Gmail
Barvol does not read your entire inbox. It reads emails from senders who match contacts in your CRM, emails you have starred, and emails that match patterns associated with customer feedback, support requests, or business-critical communication (based on subject and sender analysis).
Specifically, Barvol looks for:
- Emails from customers or contacts in your CRM
- Emails from new senders that appear to be business inquiries
- Reply threads from people you have previously emailed
Personal emails, newsletters, and automated notifications are filtered out and not read.
Connecting Gmail
Go to Integrations, click Gmail, and click "Connect." You will be redirected to Google's authorization page. Grant the permissions requested — Barvol requires read-only access to your Gmail messages and metadata. After authorization, you are returned to Barvol and the initial sync begins.
The initial sync processes your most recent 500 relevant emails (from CRM contacts and starred messages). Historical emails are not imported in full; only the most recent 90 days are analyzed.
How Gmail data appears in Barvol
Gmail data surfaces in three places:
- CRM contact records — each contact's record shows recent email threads with them, including the date and subject of the last email.
- Calendar event context — if you have a meeting with a CRM contact, Barvol shows your recent email thread with them in the meeting context panel.
- Ask Barvol — you can ask questions like "What did we last discuss with Acme Corp?" and the AI will reference your email history.
Feedback detection
Barvol's AI scans incoming emails from CRM contacts for signals that resemble customer feedback — feature requests, complaints, compliments, and churn risk indicators. When it detects one, it shows a notification prompting you to log it as a formal feedback entry with one click.
You can turn feedback detection off from the Gmail integration settings page if you prefer to log feedback manually.
Gmail permissions scope
Barvol requests the following Gmail OAuth scope: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly. This is a read-only scope. Barvol cannot send emails, delete emails, modify labels, or take any action on your inbox.