The Gmail Add-on
The Gmail Add-on puts BuyerFlo's context next to whatever you're reading in Gmail. Open an email from a buyer's agent and the sidebar shows you which deal it belongs to, which tasks are open on that deal, and one-click actions for the most common moves — reply with an AI draft, log the message, close a task, or start a new deal from a contract.
It's optional. You can run BuyerFlo fully without it — every action the add-on exposes is also available in the web workspace.
What you get inside Gmail
Open the BuyerFlo icon on the right rail of your Gmail window, and the sidebar opens to one of three states.
Homepage (no email selected). A quick summary: how many deals you have active, how many drafts are awaiting your approval, and a "+ New deal" button if you want to upload a contract straight from Gmail.
Contextual (an email is open). The add-on classifies the open email and routes you to the right card:
- Match found — the email is from a contact on a known deal, or threads with a deal-known address. The card shows the deal, the open tasks, and action buttons.
- Ambiguous match — the email could be one of two deals (e.g. an agent on multiple of your transactions). The card asks you to pick.
- Not a deal — no match. The card offers to create a new deal if the email contains an attached contract.
Compose actions (when you're composing a reply). Insert an AI-drafted reply on the current task, or queue a logged-thread snippet — see below.
What the action buttons do
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Reply | Insert an AI-drafted reply for the current task into Gmail's compose window. You can edit before sending. |
| Log this thread | Append the visible message into the deal's activity history without sending anything. Useful when a party emails you directly instead of the deal address. |
| Close task | Mark the relevant task complete with the email as evidence. Includes an Undo button. |
| Pick different task | If the auto-matched task isn't the right one, switch to a sibling task on the same deal. |
| + New deal from contract | When the open email has an attached contract PDF, fire the standard new-deal extraction flow without leaving Gmail. |
All actions write to the same audit trail as the web workspace.
How identity works
When you click an add-on action, Gmail sends the BuyerFlo backend two pieces of identity:
- An OIDC token in the Authorization header, proving the request came from Google for a real Gmail user.
- The active user's email and Google sub in the event body.
We use those to look up your TC account. As long as the Gmail account you're logged into matches the email on your BuyerFlo profile, the add-on connects automatically.
Installing
- Open Gmail.
- Click the + in the right rail (Get add-ons) to open the Google Workspace Marketplace.
- Search for BuyerFlo and install. You'll be asked to grant access to your message metadata, message body (only for the open email), and Drive/compose actions.
- Reload Gmail. The BuyerFlo icon appears in the right rail.
If you don't see it after install, fully close Gmail (all tabs) and reopen. Google sometimes caches the right-rail icon set.
Troubleshooting
Sidebar shows "401 Unauthorized" or "Unknown user" — your Gmail account's email doesn't match a BuyerFlo profile. Sign into app.buyerflo.com with the same Google account, complete onboarding, then reload Gmail.
Sidebar shows "500 Server Error" — most often a deployment-side issue we'll see in the logs. Email flo@help.buyerflo.com with the time of the click and we'll trace it.
Sidebar shows the icon as a gray placeholder — Gmail's icon probe got cached against an error response. Uninstall the add-on, wait 60 seconds, reinstall. The icon should appear properly on the next reload.
Action button does nothing — open the Gmail page in a fresh browser window (no extension blockers). Some content blockers strip add-on iframes silently.
"Not a deal" on an email that should match — the add-on classifies on sender / thread / subject. If the sender's email isn't on the deal as a contact yet, add them in the workspace and the next reply will match.
When to use the workspace instead
Some workflows are still better in the full web app:
- Editing a draft beyond a small tweak (the web editor has the full body)
- Reviewing the deal pipeline strip + Plan view
- Browsing Documents
- Adding contacts in bulk
- Anything across multiple deals at once
The add-on is built for in-the-moment moves on one email at a time. The web workspace is where you live for everything else.