---
title: Send Email action
description: Send an email to specified users or groups as an action in a flow.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/build-workflows/workflow-studio/send-email-flow-designer.html
release: australia
product: Workflow Studio
classification: workflow-studio
topic_type: reference
last_updated: "2026-03-12"
reading_time_minutes: 3
breadcrumb: [Actions, Flows, subflows, and actions reference, Flows, subflows, and actions, Workflow Studio, Build workflows]
---

# Send Email action

Send an email to specified users or groups as an action in a flow.

## Roles and availability

Available as a Workflow Studio ServiceNow core action. Users with the flow\_designer or admin role can add an action to a flow and define configuration details.

## Inputs

Provide a value for each input that your flow needs. To add dynamic values, you can also drag and drop pills from the Data panel or select them from the pill picker.

-   **Target Record**

    Data type: **Document ID**

    Record that the email is associated to. When a user sends a reply to your email, the target record is updated with the reply email content.

-   **Table**

    Data type: **Table Name**

    Table containing the target record.

-   **To**

    Data type: **String**

    The main recipients of the email. Enter a list of user email addresses separated by commas or white spaces. You can also drag data pills that contain email addresses into the field, such as a User or Group record. For example, if you want to send an email to the group assigned to the incident, drag the **\[Assignment group\]** data pill from the data panel.

    To send email to a group, you must provide a **Group email** address. To send email to group members, the group must have the **Include members** option enabled.

    **Note:** The number of email recipients must be equal to or less than the maximum number set by the glide.email.smtp.max\_recipients system property. See [Minimize SMTP Recipient Quantity](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/platform-security/sc-max-smtp-recipients.md) for information about setting this value.

-   **CC**

    Data type: **String**

    Additional recipients copied on this email. Enter a list of user email addresses separated by commas or white spaces. You can also drag data pills that contain email addresses into the field.

-   **BCC**

    Data type: **String**

    Additional recipients of this email, who are visible only to the sender \(blind copied\). Enter a list of user email addresses separated by commas or white spaces. You can also drag data pills that contain email addresses into the field.

-   **Subject**

    Data type: **String**

    Subject of the email. You can enter text or drag data pills into the field.

-   **Body**

    The content of the message body. You can enter text or drag data pills into the field. The editor formatting options add inline styles. There is no style sheet associated with an email body. You can add your own inline style sheet to this HTML input.

    **Note:** You can partially reuse content from the Email Template \[sysevent\_email\_template\] table with some manual editing. The Send Email action can't process Email template variables, which are strings that start with the dollar sign character and include content in curly braces. You must replace email variables with references to data pills. For example, replace the string `${number}` with a data pill reference to an incident record number.


## Outputs

These outputs appear in the Data panel. You can use them as inputs elsewhere in your action or flow.

-   **Email**

    Data type: **Record**

    Email record created.


## Configuring instance Email

For information about configuring your instance to send and receive email messages, see [Configure email administration](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/platform-administration/configuring-email-admin.md).

## Testing the email action

To verify that the email was generated when testing the action, review the email record in the Email \[sys\_email\] table. The **Headers** field indicates whether the email was successfully generated. For example:\[Omitted image "Email-Header-Example.png"\] Alt text: Email header generated by the Send Email action ACL restrictions apply to the Send Email action. If you configured your flow to run as the user who initiates the session, ensure that the user can access email. To test access controls for a Send Email action, impersonate a typical email sender and manually trigger the flow.

## Send email when incident created

\[Omitted image "example-send-email-action.png"\] Alt text: Flow that sends an email message to the assigned to user of an incident record

In this example, the system sends an email whenever an incident record is created where the Assigned to filed is not empty and when the incident category is inquiry/help. The incident trigger record provides the values used by the send email action. For example, the email is sent to the email address of the assigned to user, and the email subject and email body both refer to the incident number.

**Parent Topic:**[Workflow Studio actions](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/build-workflows/workflow-studio/flow-actions.md)