https://zapier.com/blog A blog about productivity, workflow automation, company building and how to get things done with less work. Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:23:06 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/copy-google-drive-folders Every year, I teach the same three courses part-time at a local college. This means that I repurpose the same teaching materials and lesson slides for each semester. And right before every semester, I bemoan the fact that despite its many innovations, Google Drive still doesn't offer a built-in way to quickly duplicate a folder and all of its files.  But at least there's a not-too-terrible workaround. Here's how to make a copy of a folder in Google Drive. Table of contents: How to copy a folder Jessica Lau Wed, 09 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/copy-google-drive-folders https://zapier.com/blog/cpq-software-vendors Two years ago, I bought a new SUV. Before setting foot in the dealership, I spent a while customizing it online. I picked the flashiest trim and added a tow package. The site informed me that the tow package needed the bigger engine, the bigger engine needed the upgraded brakes, and my total was now $8,000 over a number that was already out of my range to begin with. Annoying, but reasonable. Without those guardrails, a salesperson scribbles my options on a form, the system accepts whatever they Ben Lyso Wed, 09 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/cpq-software-vendors https://zapier.com/blog/competitor-analysis-tools Personally, I don't like thinking about competition—it makes me anxious. I'd rather be like Matthew McConaughey at the 2014 Oscars and just compete with myself (or at least ramble about it until the exit music comes on). But in the business world, there's no way around thinking about your competitors. It's how brands know how to position themselves in the greater marketplace. The right competitor analysis software can make those efforts more informed, more accurate, and more efficient. So I talk Bryce Emley Wed, 09 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/competitor-analysis-tools https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-voice-generator Recording a voiceover is challenging enough. You go through way too many takes to get what you want. You don't have enough time to rehearse and hit your tone and intention targets. You read endless audio editing software guides to make sure your voice sounds good. And even if you nail all of these things, if you don't have access to a studio, your perfect performance will be riddled with background noise. So should you give up and hire a voice actor? Not yet: AI voice generators can deliver impr Miguel Rebelo Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-voice-generator https://zapier.com/blog/jasper-ai Jasper was inescapable in the early years of the AI boom. With its quirky robot logo and "Boss Mode," a tool that churned out long-form blog posts, it had more name recognition than any other AI writing assistant. Then ChatGPT came out and changed everything. For consumers, Jasper appeared to fall off the map entirely. (As one user commented on one of Jasper's YouTube videos, "Jasper is still alive? I loved it back in the day before ChatGPT, but now what's the point?") Jasper is very much alive, Ryan Kane Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/jasper-ai https://zapier.com/blog/graphic-design-tools-for-social-media-images As both a photographer and writer, I'm very aware of what gets engagement on social media. Whether you use Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Bluesky, Mastodon, or any other social network, visual posts, like photos, videos, and graphics, get more attention. The good news is you don't have to hire a designer or spend hundreds of dollars per year on software subscriptions to get great visuals; there are some awesome free graphic design apps out there you can use to create incredible social Harry Guinness Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/graphic-design-tools-for-social-media-images https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-scheduling Productivity starts with your calendar—but sometimes it ends there too. No one wants to reprioritize an entire week after an emergency, or play calendar Tetris to land a meeting with that busy lead sometime in the next two days. This is where an AI scheduling assistant can help: instead of working on your schedule, you can let AI calendar apps do it for you. I've been playing around with all sorts of AI tools recently. For this article, I considered a couple dozen AI calendars, and did in-depth Miguel Rebelo Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-ai-scheduling https://zapier.com/blog/n8n-vs-power-automate n8n and Microsoft Power Automate both run multi-step workflows, connect to your business apps, and have spent the last few years adding AI to everything they ship. But they were built for completely different users: n8n for individual developers who want total control over their workflows, and Power Automate for big orgs that live in the Microsoft ecosystem.  Here's everything you need to know about n8n vs. Microsoft Power Automate, including differences in automation approaches, integrations, A Ben Lyso Tue, 08 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/n8n-vs-power-automate https://zapier.com/blog/openai-models Keeping track of all the new AI models getting released at the moment is practically a full-time job. The most recent model, GPT-6 Astra, was released about two months after the GPT-5.6 series, which itself was released less than three months after GPT 5.5—you get the picture. I've been writing about OpenAI's models for the past few years, and it feels like every time I publish an article, another new model drops. OpenAI seems to be serious about pushing point-releases more frequently rather tha Harry Guinness Tue, 08 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/openai-models https://zapier.com/blog/ai-and-human-approval Every manager eventually learns that "use your best judgment" is not an instruction—it's a wager. You're betting the person's judgment resembles yours closely enough that you won't hear about the outcome from Legal. Companies are now placing that bet with software. An AI agent can have access to the company card, email account, and every customer record, even though its judgment can be, putting it nicely, flawed. AI often won't push back against your ideas even if they wouldn't pass a human snif Lane Gillespie Tue, 08 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/ai-and-human-approval https://zapier.com/blog/jasper-vs-copy-ai Jasper and Copy.ai were two of the first AI text generators to hit the market in the pre-ChatGPT days. (Remember a world without ChatGPT? Me neither.) But once chatbots became ubiquitous and ridiculously powerful, there wasn't much competitive advantage in being a slightly-prettier text generator. As a result, both apps have pivoted upmarket: Copy.ai is now an AI go-to-market platform for sales, operations, and marketing teams, while Jasper is focused specifically on AI workflows for marketing t Ryan Kane Tue, 08 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/jasper-vs-copy-ai https://zapier.com/blog/automate-chatgpt OpenAI is rolling out new models all the time, and you can see the improvements and power even in a quick back-and-forth with ChatGPT. But as much as we all love shooting the breeze with an AI chatbot, the real question is how you can put the AI models to use in your work. All of ChatGPT's state-of-the-art models are available in Zapier. That means you can add ChatGPT-powered steps to your existing workflows, or securely access and take action in apps directly from ChatGPT, without ever leaving Steph Spector Fri, 04 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/automate-chatgpt https://zapier.com/blog/automate-claude With every new model release, Claude tops almost every benchmark. And chatting with Claude makes it clear why: it's good at everything. But while there's power in a back-and-forth conversation, you can accomplish a lot more when you use Zapier to connect Claude to the rest of your apps and let automation carry out entire workflows for you. Here's how it works. Table of contents: Add Claude's brain to your existing workflows Automate workflows directly from Claude Claude automation FAQ Add Claude Steph Spector Fri, 04 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/automate-claude https://zapier.com/blog/claude-mythos On April 7, 2026, Claude Mythos Preview was officially announced, but it was apparently too dangerous to release. According to Anthropic, Claude Mythos represented a unique cybersecurity threat (they claimed that "the fallout—for economies, public safety, and national security—could be severe.") Instead of releasing Mythos to the general public, they spun up Project Glasswing, a cybersecurity initiative that also involved some big-name companies. The idea was that they'd be able to deploy Mythos Harry Guinness Fri, 04 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/claude-mythos https://zapier.com/blog/gmail-labels No matter how organized you think your Gmail inbox is, there's usually something you can streamline even better. That's what happened to me when I discovered how to automatically label emails in Gmail.  I realize this feature has been around for a long time, but I'd never looked into it before. And ever since that first email popped into my inbox with a pre-attached label, I've been hooked. Here's everything you need to know about how to use Gmail labels. Table of contents: What are Gmail label Jessica Lau Thu, 03 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/gmail-labels https://zapier.com/blog/business-proposal-template In my vast experience of convincing people to do things they're initially sure they don't want to do, I've picked up a trick or two—namely, that no matter how exceptional and transformative your product may be, if your proposal doesn't articulate its value, you might as well fold it into a paper airplane and throw it out a window. Impactful proposals require structure, which is where a business proposal template comes in. It's the strategic framework that turns your pitch into the corporate equi Allisa Boulette Thu, 03 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/business-proposal-template https://zapier.com/blog/best-email-clients-windows Web-based email is fine, but nothing quite comes close to the convenience of a native email client. It's the best way to manage multiple accounts, access messages offline, and make use of powerful tools that can help quickly triage your inbox. And there's no shortage of Windows email clients that can boost your email productivity. These desktop applications remove your browser from the equation and allow you to monitor multiple inboxes from one interface. Some are designed to focus your attent Tim Brookes Wed, 02 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-email-clients-windows https://zapier.com/blog/chatgpt-scheduled-tasks My laptop and phone are filled with apps dedicated to getting me to do specific things: there's a news app that compiles a customized daily reading list; there's a language learning app that prompts me to do daily French lessons; there's even one that's sole purpose is to remind me when to switch my aligners.  But all of those apps are reminding me to do something—I want an app that just does the things itself. Of course, ChatGPT—which is required by AI law to add at least one new feature every Jessica Lau Wed, 02 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/chatgpt-scheduled-tasks https://zapier.com/blog/slack-quote-message-in-reply Quoting someone in Slack is either the clearest thing you can do in a conversation or a passive-aggressive power move, depending on who you ask. We're not here to relitigate that debate (it's the clearest thing you can do, obviously). We're here because Slack doesn't have a built-in quote feature the way most modern chat apps do—and you'd like to know what to do about that. There are three workarounds: you can format a message as a block quote, share one as a link, or forward it to another conve Jessica Lau Wed, 02 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/slack-quote-message-in-reply https://zapier.com/blog/best-journaling-apps There's a reason so many successful people keep a journal: it works. Taking the time to gather your thoughts and experiences, then write them down, is a simple way to manage stress, enhance creativity, increase happiness, improve health, and increase work performance. The trouble is, keeping a journal isn't easy. It takes dedication to this new habit and a willingness to open up when writing on a blank page. What have you done today? Who are you, really? Journaling apps can help you figure this Justin Pot Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:02:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-journaling-apps https://zapier.com/blog/best-seo-audit-tools If you're like most humans, the word "audit" gives you an instant twinge of anxiety. But if you're an SEO professional (and thus not like most humans), it might fill your head with grand visions of actionable marketing insights. Digital marketers depend on tools that generate these insights, so we can learn what's bringing traffic to a website, why content is plummeting on the SERP, and how copy on a page can be improved. I've used plenty of SEO audit tools in my career, and to help you pick the Bryce Emley Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/best-seo-audit-tools https://zapier.com/blog/hootsuite-alternatives In another life, I ran social for a number of small companies. And if I had a nickel for every time someone said, "Social's easy. Just do [insert suggestion that's definitely been done before]," I'd have long been retired. Building a social media strategy and executing it is anything but easy.  That's why people turn to social media management giants like Hootsuite to streamline their efforts. It allows you to control your full social media presence across multiple platforms in one place. But Ho Jessica Lau Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/hootsuite-alternatives https://zapier.com/blog/find-email-address I once spent more minutes than was reasonable looking for someone's email address. I checked their website, scanned their LinkedIn, searched their name with every Google operator combo I could think of, and eventually found myself scrolling through photos of a conference they'd attended and zooming in on the conference badge to see if their social handle was hiding in plain sight. It was not.  There are infinitely better ways to get the job done—and none of them involve pretending you're in an e Jessica Lau Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:15:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/find-email-address https://zapier.com/blog/train-chatgpt-to-write-like-you As a content creator at , I'm always looking for ways to produce more without sacrificing my voice. ChatGPT's custom instructions and the ability to build custom GPTs made it easy for me—once I figured out how to train it to actually sound like me.  The gist is that you can use ChatGPT to analyze a few samples of your writing style, including voice, tone, and structure, and then paste those descriptors into ChatGPT's custom instructions. Here, I'll walk you through the process so you can train C Matt Giaro Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/train-chatgpt-to-write-like-you https://zapier.com/blog/what-is-hubspot HubSpot started as an inbound marketing tool, and today it bills itself as an AI-powered customer platform. But what does that actually mean?  HubSpot is a one-stop shop for managing every stage of the customer lifecycle. Here's a list of some of what HubSpot offers, just to give you an idea of how wide-ranging its features are: Lead generation forms Lead management tools (CRM, call tracking, and prospecting) Social media management  Data quality automations Invoices and payment links AI-powered Hannah Herman Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://zapier.com/blog/what-is-hubspot