TABS IN N8N
After getting familiar with the nodes, this is the screen you’ll come back to most often — the Overview with its management tabs. Understanding each tab properly means you can keep full control of your automation system without getting lost.
You don’t need to pay attention to most of these metrics. The only ones worth checking are the number of failed executions — so you can adjust your workflow accordingly — and the total execution count for the month, to make sure you’re not approaching n8n’s usage limits for your account plan.
Managing all your workflows
The first tab when you open n8n — a full list of every workflow you’ve created. Each entry shows the workflow name, last updated time, number of credentials in use, which project it belongs to, and its active status.
Published / Unpublished
A workflow with a green “Published” badge is live and its trigger is active. No badge means the workflow is off — even a scheduled trigger won’t run. Before asking “why isn’t my workflow running,” check this first.
Link count 🔗
The number next to the link icon tells you how many credentials this workflow is using. Useful when you need to know which workflows will be affected if a credential expires or gets revoked.
Project
The right side of each workflow shows which project it belongs to (Personal or a named project). Helps you keep things organized when running multiple projects in parallel.
Sort by last updated
n8n defaults to sorting by last modified. When you need to find a recently edited workflow or track down a new error, this is faster than sorting by name.
Managing your authentication
This is where all your authentication information lives — OAuth2, API keys, SMTP, Custom Auth… Every service you connect to n8n has a credential here. A broken credential means a broken workflow — this is the first tab to check when you hit an authentication error.
Name them properly
Don’t leave the default name. When you have 10–15 credentials, “Google Sheets OAuth2 – ProductCatalog” is findable instantly, “Untitled credential 3” is not. Add the project name or intended use to the credential name right when you create it.
Link count 🔗
Shows how many workflows are using this credential. High link count means higher impact if it breaks — multiple workflows go down at the same time.
Last updated
OAuth2 tokens sometimes need manual refresh if they haven’t been used in a while. Check the last updated time to know which credentials haven’t been touched recently.
Don’t delete credentials that are in use
n8n will warn you, but if you force-delete, every workflow linked to that credential will throw authentication errors immediately. Before deleting, confirm link count = 0.
Full run history
The full log of every time your workflows have run — success or failure, it’s all here. This is where you debug when something goes wrong, check execution speed, or confirm that a scheduled workflow ran on time.
Status
Three main statuses: ✅ Success (completed without errors), ❌ Error (something went wrong, the row highlights red), ⏳ Waiting (workflow is paused — common with webhook workflows waiting for an external response). A red row means go check it now.
Run Time
How long each execution took. Normal workflows finish in a few seconds. If you suddenly see one taking several minutes, it’s likely stuck in a loop, waiting on an API timeout, or processing an unusually large amount of data.
Exec. ID
Every run gets a unique incrementing ID. When you need to debug a specific past execution or trace an issue, this is the first thing to look up.
Filter by workflow
When multiple workflows run in parallel, the Executions tab becomes a mixed list fast. Use the filter in the top right to narrow down to a specific workflow — much faster than scrolling through everything manually.