Born on March 19, 1867 (February 14, Keio 3), the eldest son of the carpenter Toyoda Ikichi in Yamaguchi village, Fuchi District, Totomi Province (today Yamaguchi, Kosai, Shizuoka). In a poor farmer-carpenter household, after graduating from primary school he helped with the family carpentry, but seeing his mother staying up at a hand loom he conceived the aspiration to invent 'to lighten mother's hardship.' In 1890, at 23, he visited the Third National Industrial Exhibition held in Ueno, Tokyo, was struck by European and American machines, and set himself in earnest to loom development. In the same year he obtained his first patent (No. 1195) for his own 'Toyoda-style wooden manual loom.' In 1894 he developed the 'yarn reeler,' in 1896 the 'Toyoda-style steam-power loom' (Japan's first powered loom), in 1903 the 'Type T automatic loom,' and went on with one invention after another; in 1911 he founded the Toyoda Automatic Weaving Factory (later Toyoda Spinning) in Nagoya. In 1918 Toyoda Spinning Corporation was established. In 1924 he completed his life's invention, the 'Non-Stop Shuttle-Change Toyoda Automatic Loom (Type G),' an epoch-making machine that automatically stopped when a thread broke and allowed one person to operate dozens. In 1926 he founded Toyoda Automatic Loom Works (today Toyota Industries Corporation) and sold the patent rights for the Type G loom to Platt Brothers of Britain for 100,000 pounds (about 1 million yen at the time). In his life he obtained 84 domestic patents, 13 foreign patents, and 35 utility models. He died in Nagoya on October 30, 1930, at 63. He left to his son Kiichiro the last wish to 'invent the automobile,' laying the foundation for the founding of Toyota Motor.

A 'weed inventor' who plunged from poverty into the world of invention by self-study. He had only a primary-school education, but sharpened his own engineering intuition through reading, observation, and trial and error. 'If a man can achieve even one thing in his life, that is great. Something useful to the world' was his pet phrase. He felt strongly for his family and relations, and his letters to his wife, children, and siblings were full of affection. He is known for the words 'Open the shoji and look; outside is wide' — emphasizing the importance of thinking with a wide view rather than being caught by the problem at hand. He preferred a plain life and avoided luxury even after success.

The greatest legacy left by Toyoda Sakichi is the Toyota Group itself. His son Kiichiro founded an Automotive Department within Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1933, and in 1937 made it independent as Toyota Motor Industries — the origin of present-day Toyota Motor, one of the world's largest automakers. Sakichi's 'for the world, for the people' philosophy of invention became the core of the Toyota Group's management philosophy, the 'Toyoda Precepts' (established 1935), and is still carried on as Toyota's corporate culture. Words of Sakichi such as 'Open the shoji and look; outside is wide' and 'One deed is worth a hundred arguments' are taught to Toyota employees worldwide as the prototype of Toyota's management philosophy. At the Toyoda Sakichi Memorial Hall in Kosai, Shizuoka, and the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya, Sakichi's inventions and life are exhibited, and they have become pilgrimage sites visited by managers and engineers from around the world. In 2007, commemorating the 140th anniversary of his birth and the 117th anniversary of his first patent, a restoration of Patent No. 1195, the 'Toyoda-style wooden manual loom,' was carried out.