Sending Email

There are two ways to send email using the Gmail API:

• You can send it directly using the messages.send method.
• You can send it from a draft, using the drafts.send method.

Emails are sent as base64url encoded strings within the raw property of a message resource. The high-level workflow to send an email is to:

1. Create the email content in some convenient way and encode it as a base64url string.
2. Create a new message resource and set its raw property to the base64url string you just created.
3. Call messages.send, or, if sending a draft, drafts.send to send the message.

The details of this workflow can vary depending on your choice of client library and programming language.

Creating messages

The Gmail API requires MIME email messages compliant with RFC 2822 and encoded as base64url strings. Many programming languages have libraries or utilities that simplify the process of creating and encoding MIME messages. The following code examples demonstrate how to create a MIME message using the Google APIs client libraries for various langauges.

Java

Creating an email message can be greatly simplified with the MimeMessage class in the javax.mail.internet package. The following example shows how to create the email message, including the headers:

    /**
     * Create a MimeMessage using the parameters provided.
     *
     * @param to email address of the receiver
     * @param from email address of the sender, the mailbox account
     * @param subject subject of the email
     * @param bodyText body text of the email
     * @return the MimeMessage to be used to send email
     * @throws MessagingException
     */
    public static MimeMessage createEmail(String to,
                                          String from,
                                          String subject,
                                          String bodyText)
            throws MessagingException {
        Properties props = new Properties();
        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);

        MimeMessage email = new MimeMessage(session);

        email.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
        email.addRecipient(javax.mail.Message.RecipientType.TO,
                new InternetAddress(to));
        email.setSubject(subject);
        email.setText(bodyText);
        return email;
    }

The next step is to encode the MimeMessage, instantiate a Message object, and set the base64url encoded message string as the value of the raw property.

    /**
     * Create a message from an email.
     *
     * @param emailContent Email to be set to raw of message
     * @return a message containing a base64url encoded email
     * @throws IOException
     * @throws MessagingException
     */
    public static Message createMessageWithEmail(MimeMessage emailContent)
            throws MessagingException, IOException {
        ByteArrayOutputStream buffer = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        emailContent.writeTo(buffer);
        byte[] bytes = buffer.toByteArray();
        String encodedEmail = Base64.encodeBase64URLSafeString(bytes);
        Message message = new Message();
        message.setRaw(encodedEmail);
        return message;
    }

Python

The following code sample demonstrates creating a MIME message, encoding to a base64url string, and assigning it to the raw field of the Message resource:

def create_message(sender, to, subject, message_text):
  """Create a message for an email.

  Args:
    sender: Email address of the sender.
    to: Email address of the receiver.
    subject: The subject of the email message.
    message_text: The text of the email message.

  Returns:
    An object containing a base64url encoded email object.
  """
  message = MIMEText(message_text)
  message['to'] = to
  message['from'] = sender
  message['subject'] = subject
  return {'raw': base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_string())}

Creating messages with attachments

Creating a message with an attachment is like creating any other message, but the process of uploading the file as a multi-part MIME message depends on the programming language. The following code examples demonstrate possible ways of creating a multi-part MIME message with an attachment.

Java

The following example shows how to create a multi-part MIME message, the encoding and assignment steps are the same as above.

    /**
     * Create a MimeMessage using the parameters provided.
     *
     * @param to Email address of the receiver.
     * @param from Email address of the sender, the mailbox account.
     * @param subject Subject of the email.
     * @param bodyText Body text of the email.
     * @param file Path to the file to be attached.
     * @return MimeMessage to be used to send email.
     * @throws MessagingException
     */
    public static MimeMessage createEmailWithAttachment(String to,
                                                        String from,
                                                        String subject,
                                                        String bodyText,
                                                        File file)
            throws MessagingException, IOException {
        Properties props = new Properties();
        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);

        MimeMessage email = new MimeMessage(session);

        email.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
        email.addRecipient(javax.mail.Message.RecipientType.TO,
                new InternetAddress(to));
        email.setSubject(subject);

        MimeBodyPart mimeBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
        mimeBodyPart.setContent(bodyText, "text/plain");

        Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
        multipart.addBodyPart(mimeBodyPart);

        mimeBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
        DataSource source = new FileDataSource(file);

        mimeBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
        mimeBodyPart.setFileName(file.getName());

        multipart.addBodyPart(mimeBodyPart);
        email.setContent(multipart);

        return email;
    }

Python

Similar to the previous example, this example also handles encoding the message to base64url and assigning it to the raw field of the Message resource.

def create_message_with_attachment(
    sender, to, subject, message_text, file):
  """Create a message for an email.

  Args:
    sender: Email address of the sender.
    to: Email address of the receiver.
    subject: The subject of the email message.
    message_text: The text of the email message.
    file: The path to the file to be attached.

  Returns:
    An object containing a base64url encoded email object.
  """
  message = MIMEMultipart()
  message['to'] = to
  message['from'] = sender
  message['subject'] = subject

  msg = MIMEText(message_text)
  message.attach(msg)

  content_type, encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(file)

  if content_type is None or encoding is not None:
    content_type = 'application/octet-stream'
  main_type, sub_type = content_type.split('/', 1)
  if main_type == 'text':
    fp = open(file, 'rb')
    msg = MIMEText(fp.read(), _subtype=sub_type)
    fp.close()
  elif main_type == 'image':
    fp = open(file, 'rb')
    msg = MIMEImage(fp.read(), _subtype=sub_type)
    fp.close()
  elif main_type == 'audio':
    fp = open(file, 'rb')
    msg = MIMEAudio(fp.read(), _subtype=sub_type)
    fp.close()
  else:
    fp = open(file, 'rb')
    msg = MIMEBase(main_type, sub_type)
    msg.set_payload(fp.read())
    fp.close()
  filename = os.path.basename(file)
  msg.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment', filename=filename)
  message.attach(msg)

  return {'raw': base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_string())}

Sending messages

Once you have created a message, you can send it by supplying it in the request body of a call to messages.send, as demonstrated in the following examples.

Java

    /**
     * Send an email from the user's mailbox to its recipient.
     *
     * @param service Authorized Gmail API instance.
     * @param userId User's email address. The special value "me"
     * can be used to indicate the authenticated user.
     * @param emailContent Email to be sent.
     * @return The sent message
     * @throws MessagingException
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public static Message sendMessage(Gmail service,
                                      String userId,
                                      MimeMessage emailContent)
            throws MessagingException, IOException {
        Message message = createMessageWithEmail(emailContent);
        message = service.users().messages().send(userId, message).execute();

        System.out.println("Message id: " + message.getId());
        System.out.println(message.toPrettyString());
        return message;
    }

Python

def send_message(service, user_id, message):
  """Send an email message.

  Args:
    service: Authorized Gmail API service instance.
    user_id: User's email address. The special value "me"
    can be used to indicate the authenticated user.
    message: Message to be sent.

  Returns:
    Sent Message.
  """
  try:
    message = (service.users().messages().send(userId=user_id, body=message)
               .execute())
    print 'Message Id: %s' % message['id']
    return message
  except errors.HttpError, error:
    print 'An error occurred: %s' % error

If you're trying to send a reply and want the email to thread, make sure that:

1. The Subject headers match
2. The References and In-Reply-To headers follow the RFC 2822 standard.

For information on sending a message from a draft, see Creating Drafts.