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Every 6 hours

Get emailed when a web page changes, with snapshots in Drive

Whenever a page you watch changes, you get an email showing what changed and a copy of the new version is saved to Drive.

Runs
Every 6 hours
Apps
Gmail, Google Drive
AI
Optional
Access
Drive write; Gmail gmail.send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 6 hours, fetch <url>; if the content changed, save the new version to my Drive folder and email me what changed.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A product manager keeps an eye on a competitor's pricing page, a supplier's terms of service and a government guidance page that affects her business. Checking them by hand is easy to forget, and when something does change she has no copy of what it said before.

This automation watches the page for her and keeps a dated copy of every version in Drive, so she hears about changes quickly and can always show what the page said on a given day.

What you get out of it

  • Changes reach you quickly

    A price change, new clause or updated rule shows up in your inbox within hours, not whenever you next happen to look.

  • Proof of what a page used to say

    Dated snapshots in Drive are useful when a supplier changes terms or a regulation is reworded and you need the earlier version.

  • Only the differences, not the whole page

    The email shows the lines that changed, so you can judge in seconds whether it matters.

  • Silence when nothing changes

    If the page is the same as last time, you hear nothing, so every email is worth opening.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 6 hours ClickRuntime opens the page you chose and reads its text.

  2. It compares the text with the version it saw last time and stops if nothing changed.

  3. When the page has changed, it saves the new version as a dated file in your Drive folder.

  4. It emails you the lines that were added or removed, optionally with a short AI summary of the change.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
  • Connect Google Drive

What you get

RunsEvery 6 hours
Get emailed when a web page changes, with snapshots in Drivetoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · Page changedPage changed: northwind.example/pricing - Team plan £29 per month + Team plan £35 per month

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Gmail and Google Drive steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
web_page_change_alerts_with_snapshots_in_drive.pyexample
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
import difflib, hashlib, io, re
from datetime import datetime, timezone
from googleapiclient.http import MediaIoBaseUpload
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, notify

URL = "https://example.com/pricing"
FOLDER_ID = "your-snapshots-folder-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    text = re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", " ", http.get(URL).text)
    lines = [l.strip() for l in text.splitlines() if l.strip()]
    digest = hashlib.sha256("\n".join(lines).encode()).hexdigest()
    if digest == state.get("hash"):
        return {"changed": False}
    old = state.get("lines") or []
    drive = build("drive", "v3", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False)
    name = f"snapshot {datetime.now(timezone.utc):%Y-%m-%d %H%M}.txt"
    drive.files().create(body={"name": name, "parents": [FOLDER_ID]},
                         media_body=MediaIoBaseUpload(io.BytesIO("\n".join(lines).encode()), "text/plain")).execute()
    if old:
        diff = [l for l in difflib.unified_diff(old, lines, lineterm="", n=0) if l[:1] in "+-" and l[:3] not in ("+++", "---")]
        notify.email_me(f"Page changed: {URL}", "\n".join(diff[:200]))
    state.set("hash", digest)
    state.set("lines", lines[:2000])
    return {"changed": True, "snapshot": name}

FAQ

Common questions

Will small changes like dates or ads trigger an email?
It compares the page's readable text, which ignores most layout changes. If a page shows a clock or a rotating banner, you can limit the check to one section of the page.
Can I watch more than one page?
Yes. List several addresses and each one is checked and snapshotted separately.
What format are the snapshots?
Each snapshot is saved as a text file named with the page and the date and time, so they sort in order in your Drive folder.
What permissions does it need?
Drive write; Gmail gmail.send. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No, but you can ask for an AI step (for example a summary). It then uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (every 6 hours). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Get emailed when a web page changes, with snapshots in Drive” from your assistant

Copy the prompt above, or connect your assistant first. Free plan, no credit card.