Automate Daily Podcast Summaries with n8n, OpenAI & Gmail

What This Automation Does

This workflow gets the top 10 podcasts for a chosen genre and country each day.
It cuts an audio segment from the episode, turns it into text, then makes a short summary.
You get all summaries sent to your email as a neat report each morning.

The main problem this fixes is saving long time used to find, download, and listen to full shows.
Instead of taking hours, the user reads important points fast by email.

Inputs → Processing Steps → Output

Inputs

• Daily genre and country selection: The user picks a podcast type like TECHNOLOGY or NEWS.
• Taddy API keys: To get top podcasts data.
• OpenAI keys: For audio transcription (Whisper) and text summarizing (GPT-4o-mini).
• Gmail OAuth credentials: To send email summaries.

Processing Steps

• The workflow runs automatically each day at set time using the Schedule Trigger.
• The Genre node sets the podcast category filter for the search.
• TaddyTopDaily sends an API request to get the day’s top 10 podcast episodes list in the chosen genre and country.
• Split Out separates each episode for individual handling.
• Download Podcast downloads full audio of each episode.
• Request Audio Crop sends audio to Aspose to cut a clip from 8 to 24 minutes, focusing transcription on key parts.
• Get Download Link waits until Aspose finishes clipping, then Download Cut MP3 retrieves the trimmed audio.
• Whisper Transcribe Audio turns the clipped audio into written text using OpenAI Whisper.
• Summarize Podcast uses GPT-4o-mini to make a short, clear summary focusing on main points.
• Final Data prepares clean JSON for each episode with names, links, and summaries.
• Merge Results combines all episode summaries into one data set.
• HTML builds a readable email with table and links for all episodes.
• Gmail sends the email to the recipient daily.

Output

The user gets a daily HTML email summary listing the top podcasts, episode info, and brief key takeaways.
This email saves listening time and helps the user stay updated quickly.

Beginner Step-by-Step: How to Use This Workflow in n8n

Step 1: Download and Import

1. Click the Download button on this page to get the workflow file.
2. Open the n8n editor where you want to use the workflow.
3. Click Import from File and select the downloaded workflow JSON file.

Step 2: Add Credentials and Settings

1. Add your Taddy API key and User ID in the TaddyTopDaily HTTP Request node headers (X-USER-ID and X-API-KEY).
2. Set your OpenAI API key in the Whisper Transcribe Audio and Summarize Podcast nodes.
3. Configure Gmail OAuth2 credentials in the Gmail node to enable email sending.
4. In the Genre node, check the value for the podcast genre and change it if needed (e.g., TECHNOLOGY).
5. Update recipient email address in the Gmail node.

Step 3: Test and Activate

1. Run the workflow manually once to make sure all nodes execute without errors.
2. Check that the email arrives with summaries in your inbox.
3. If all works, toggle the workflow ON to activate scheduled daily runs.

You do not need deep technical knowledge. Just focus on importing, adding keys, setting your preferences, then switch on.
You can adjust email recipient, genre, or clip times after importing.

If you run self-host n8n, it will work the same way but on your own server.

Tools and Services Used

• n8n: Automation platform to build and run the workflow.
• Taddy.org API: Provides daily top podcast charts by genre and country.
• Aspose Audio Cutter API: Crops long podcast files to short clips.
• OpenAI Whisper API: Converts audio clips to text transcripts.
• OpenAI GPT-4o-mini: Summarizes transcripts into short clear text.
• Gmail with OAuth2: Sends the final daily podcast summaries by email.

Customization Ideas

• Change genre in Genre to get different podcast topics.
• Modify Request Audio Crop node timestamps to capture other segments in the episode.
• Update recipient email inside Gmail node for sharing summaries with others.
• Adjust schedule in Schedule Trigger for multiple times a day or fewer days a week.

Summary

✓ Saves hours by automating podcast discovery and summary.
✓ Sends daily easy-to-read email with top podcast highlights.
✓ Works on any genre and customized by user preferences.
✓ Uses APIs for audio cutting, transcription, and summarization.
✓ Runs automatically on chosen schedule in n8n.