TL;DR: As of 2026 the current stack is two pieces: the Gmail integration (Salesforce’s Chrome extension pane, for manual logging) plus Einstein Activity Capture for automatic capture — which you should run with “Sync Email as Salesforce Activity” enabled (GA Summer ’25) so emails become real EmailMessage/Task records instead of vanishing on a 6–24-month retention clock. Anything you read about “Lightning for Gmail,” the legacy Inbox extension, or Engage for Gmail is historical.
I built Salesforce Flow, and even I need a ledger to track what’s current in the Gmail–Salesforce story — this integration has been rebuilt more times than any other in the Salesforce ecosystem, and the internet is a graveyard of guides to retired products. Here’s the state of play, verified against Salesforce’s own docs.
What’s current: two pieces
1️⃣ The Gmail integration — the Salesforce pane inside Gmail, delivered by the “Salesforce” Chrome extension. View and work with records next to your inbox, create records, and manually log emails and events to the right ones. Admin setup: Setup → Gmail Integration and Sync. Free with Sales Cloud, and the same extension now carries the Sales Cloud Everywhere sidebar features.
2️⃣ Einstein Activity Capture (EAC) — Salesforce’s long-term automatic capture: emails and calendar events auto-attach to the activity timelines of related Accounts, Contacts, Leads, and Opportunities, and contact/event sync replaces the dying Lightning Sync.
The 2025–26 plot twist: EAC finally writes real records
The classic knock on EAC — the reason a whole third-party industry exists — is that captured email wasn’t stored in your org. It lived on Salesforce’s separate Activity Platform with hard retention: 6 months on the free tier, 24 months with a paid EAC license — after which Salesforce deletes it. Timeline-only visibility: no reports, no triggers, no Flows on your own customer email.
“Sync Email as Salesforce Activity” (GA Summer ’25) changes the architecture: captured emails become native EmailMessage and Task records in your org — reportable, Flow-able, API-accessible, yours. It’s default-on for new EAC configs since Summer ’25; older configs need migration, and historical backfill is limited — the retention clock already ate what it ate. If you run EAC and haven’t migrated, this is the to-do.
The deprecation ledger (bookmark this part)
- Legacy Inbox Chrome extension: retired March 2021. Salesforce Inbox mobile app: retired (desktop Inbox features live on inside the integrations).
- Engage for Gmail (the Pardot extension): retired — a different product people constantly confuse with the Gmail integration.
- Lightning Sync: retires April 1, 2027 — migrate contact/event sync to EAC.
- EAC legacy analytics — Activity Metrics, the Activities Dashboard, Activity 360 reports — retire Spring ’27 (February 2027); Salesforce’s own timeline says audit by June 2026 and rebuild on standard Activity reports by December 2026. (Some blogs say Summer ’26 — the doc says Spring ’27.)
Third-party tools — Cirrus Insight, Revenue Grid and friends — built businesses on EAC’s old storage model by writing native records from day one. With email-as-activity GA, evaluate whether that gap still justifies a subscription for your org.
Capture is not context
Follow every step above and you reach email nirvana as Salesforce defines it: messages attached to records, reportable at last. Now look at what a thread actually contains — a pricing objection, a champion going quiet, a “we’re also evaluating…” — and ask what in this pipeline notices. Capture files the email on the account; nothing reads it for the account. Noded connects Gmail alongside the rest of the customer stack and does the reading: threads join the Customer Context Graph with the calls and tickets, commitments surface as follow-ups, and silence starts looking like the signal it is. Run EAC with email-as-activity for the system of record — genuinely, it’s finally good — and put a system of action on top.
FAQ
What currently syncs Gmail to Salesforce automatically?
Einstein Activity Capture — ideally with “Sync Email as Salesforce Activity” enabled (GA Summer ’25) so captured email becomes native EmailMessage/Task records rather than timeline-only data with 6–24-month retention.
Is the classic EAC storage problem fixed?
Going forward, yes — with email-as-activity enabled. It’s not retroactive: data already past retention is gone, and older EAC configs need migration.
What’s deprecated?
Legacy Inbox extension (2021), Inbox mobile, Engage for Gmail, Lightning Sync (April 2027), and EAC’s legacy analytics (February 2027). Guides referencing “Lightning for Gmail” are historical.
Do I still need Cirrus Insight or Revenue Grid?
Their historical reason-to-exist — EAC not writing real records — is largely addressed by email-as-activity. Re-evaluate against what they still add for your workflows (sequencing, scheduling, attachments).