Google-api-nodejs-client: send email on same thread.

[dg92]

I have received a successful response of a email using gmail.users.messages.send() which is like
{ "id": "1231212312", "labelIds": ["UNREAD", "SENT", "INBOX"], "threadId": "23123123" }

I need to send an email again to the same email address but on the same thread not as a new email i.e using thread id to send email.

Need Help!

[ace-n]

@dg92 does changing everything but the thread ID when sending subsequent messages not work for you?

[lukesneeringer]

Hi @dg92,
I am closing this as abandoned for now, but feel free to reopen if @ace-n's solution does not work.

[zorion]

Hi, sorry for bothering but it happens to me...
I'm using the Python API but I can imagine that this affects to the API endpoint so it's language-agnostic and I don't know who I should contact.
Formerly, the e-mails with same subject were posted to the same thread but now they don't. I tried to add the thread_id as you can see in the output of my program but my gmail recipient doesn't get the e-mails threaded (though the sender does).

See below the output of my program (I removed part of the body['raw'] in case it included some private data I am not aware).
'Send e-mail with body: First message 2019-06-20 16:00:26.922694'
{'raw': 'Q29udGVudC1UeXBlOiB0ZXh0L...C5jb20K...uOTIyNjk0'}
'Got'
{u'id': u'16b753049239ba7c',
u'labelIds': [u'SENT'],
u'threadId': u'16b753049239ba7c'}
'============'
'Send e-mail with body: Second message 2019-06-20 16:00:26.922694'
{'raw': 'Q29udGVudC1UeXBlOiB0ZXh0...b...OjAwOjI2LjkyMjY5NA==', 'threadId': u'16b753049239ba7c'}
'Got'
{u'id': u'16b75304c6165b0d',
u'labelIds': [u'SENT'],
u'threadId': u'16b753049239ba7c'}
'============'
'Send e-mail with body: Third message 2019-06-20 16:00:26.922694'
{'raw': 'Q29udGVudC1UeXBlOiB0ZXh0L...C5jb20KZn...TIyNjk0', 'threadId': u'16b753049239ba7c'}
'Got'
{u'id': u'16b75304f40b1d95',
u'labelIds': [u'SENT'],
u'threadId': u'16b753049239ba7c'}
'============'

It looks that the threadId is ok and the sender have them in a thread, but as you can see in the screenshots I attached at the end of this message, the recipient doesn't have it.

I would need the GMail receivers to receive threaded messages as well.

Can you reopen this or tell me who may I contact?

I am aware that we are told that we need to use the "References" and "In-Reply-To" but I'm afraid the send endpoint doesn't give me that and in order to get the e-mail I sent I think I need further permissions (read e-mail?) I would prefer to avoid.

Screenshots:

Receiver doesn't get the e-mails threaded:

Sender get the e-mails threaded:

[JustinBeckwith]

Greetings! For support with the API, please go here:
https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/support

[zorion]

Thanks Justin! I will try to copy+paste this message there!

[cmaliwal]

Hi @zorion ,

You just need to add thread id while creating the message.

def CreateMessage(sender, to, subject, message_text, threadId):  

    message = MIMEText(message_text)
    message['to'] = to
    message['from'] = sender
    message['subject'] = subject

    raw_message = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_string().encode("utf-8"))

    return { 'raw': raw_message.decode("utf-8"), 'threadId': threadId } 

[zorion]

Hi, thank for your comment, I already sent the threadId and I complained because it stopped working on June 2019. I am not sure if this is because we use G Suite or if it is working again without the References and In-Reply-To headers.
See https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides/sending#sending_messages

For your information:
We wanted to send a batch of e-mails during a batch process. On June 2019 just sending the threadId wasn't enough and we needed to send the References and In-Reply-To headers as well.
Our problem was that the first "send" didn't return the created message-id so we could not use it directly for the next messages.

We came up with a workaround. In order to group all the messages, besides the threadId (like you said) we made up a fake message-id and we add the headers with this fake message-id in all the messages we wanted grouped.
It still works today, so not bad at all.

Cheers!

[KA0335]

Hi, thank for your comment, I already sent the threadId and I complained because it stopped working on June 2019. I am not sure if this is because we use G Suite or if it is working again without the References and In-Reply-To headers.
See https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides/sending#sending_messages

For your information:
We wanted to send a batch of e-mails during a batch process. On June 2019 just sending the threadId wasn't enough and we needed to send the References and In-Reply-To headers as well.
Our problem was that the first "send" didn't return the created message-id so we could not use it directly for the next messages.

We came up with a workaround. In order to group all the messages, besides the threadId (like you said) we made up a fake message-id and we add the headers with this fake message-id in all the messages we wanted grouped.
It still works today, so not bad at all.

Cheers!

Hello!
Can you please share the code for the same? I am working on the same problem, I need to reply to emails via the gmail API and all the replies should be in the same thread.

[ChenMorSays]

I'm also interested in your solution @zorion

[zorion]

Hi Sorry for the late reply.
In order to use the in_reply_to I add it to the MIME Message like this:

    message = MIMEText(body)
    message['to'] = to
    message['from'] = sender  # Not sure if this one does anything.
    message['subject'] = subject
    if cc:
        message['cc'] = cc
    if bcc:
        message['bcc'] = bcc
    if in_reply_to:
        # For properly treating thread in receiver side.
        message['In-Reply-To'] = in_reply_to
        message['References'] = in_reply_to
    sz_message = message.as_string()
    raw_msg_byte =

base64.urlsafe_b64encode(six.ensure_binary(sz_message))
raw_msg = six.ensure_str(raw_msg_byte)
new_email = {'raw': raw_msg}
if thread_id:
# For properly treating the thread in sender side
new_email['threadId'] = thread_id

    return gmail_client.users().messages().send(
        userId='me', body=new_email,
    ).execute()

In order to get the in_reply_to as an example we make a fake message id,
this is directly the previous in_reply_to:
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.utils import make_msgid
@staticmethod
def get_fake_message_id(idstring=None):
"""Get a fake message id (for threading).

    :param idstring: An optional string as in email.utils.make_msgid.
    """
    return make_msgid(idstring)

I hope it helps!
Zorion

On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 9:32 PM Chen Mor [e-mail] wrote:

I'm also interested in your solution @zorion https://github.com/zorion

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[zorion]

Hi Sorry for the late reply.
In order to use the in_reply_to I add it to the MIME Message like this:

    message = MIMEText(body)
    message['to'] = to
    message['from'] = sender  # Not sure if this one does anything.
    message['subject'] = subject
    if cc:
        message['cc'] = cc
    if bcc:
        message['bcc'] = bcc
    if in_reply_to:
        # For properly treating thread in receiver side.
        message['In-Reply-To'] = in_reply_to
        message['References'] = in_reply_to
    sz_message = message.as_string()
    raw_msg_byte =

base64.urlsafe_b64encode(six.ensure_binary(sz_message))
raw_msg = six.ensure_str(raw_msg_byte)
new_email = {'raw': raw_msg}
if thread_id:
# For properly treating the thread in sender side
new_email['threadId'] = thread_id

    return gmail_client.users().messages().send(
        userId='me', body=new_email,
    ).execute()

In order to get the in_reply_to as an example we make a fake message id,
this is directly the previous in_reply_to:
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.utils import make_msgid
@staticmethod
def get_fake_message_id(idstring=None):
"""Get a fake message id (for threading).

    :param idstring: An optional string as in email.utils.make_msgid.
    """
    return make_msgid(idstring)

I hope it helps!

PS: I send this message twice because I was requested twice and I'm not
sure if everyone will be notified replying just to one of them. Sorry if
someone finds it a bit spammic, I hope I won't do it again.
Zorion

On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 1:11 PM Kushagra Anand [e-mail]
wrote:

Hi, thank for your comment, I already sent the threadId and I complained
because it stopped working on June 2019. I am not sure if this is because
we use G Suite or if it is working again without the References and
In-Reply-To headers.
See
https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides/sending#sending_messages

For your information:
We wanted to send a batch of e-mails during a batch process. On June 2019
just sending the threadId wasn't enough and we needed to send the
References and In-Reply-To headers as well.
Our problem was that the first "send" didn't return the created message-id
so we could not use it directly for the next messages.

We came up with a workaround. In order to group all the messages, besides
the threadId (like you said) we made up a fake message-id and we add the
headers with this fake message-id in all the messages we wanted grouped.
It still works today, so not bad at all.

Cheers!

Hello!
Can you please share the code for the same? I am working on the same
problem, I need to reply to emails via the gmail API and all the replies
should be in the same thread.

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[zorion]

Oh, I didn't notice that this is a nodejs library. My solution is in python
but I hope you can do the same in nodejs.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 3:37 PM Zorion [e-mail] wrote:

Hi Sorry for the late reply.
In order to use the in_reply_to I add it to the MIME Message like this:

    message = MIMEText(body)
    message['to'] = to
    message['from'] = sender  # Not sure if this one does anything.
    message['subject'] = subject
    if cc:
        message['cc'] = cc
    if bcc:
        message['bcc'] = bcc
    if in_reply_to:
        # For properly treating thread in receiver side.
        message['In-Reply-To'] = in_reply_to
        message['References'] = in_reply_to
    sz_message = message.as_string()
    raw_msg_byte =

base64.urlsafe_b64encode(six.ensure_binary(sz_message))
raw_msg = six.ensure_str(raw_msg_byte)
new_email = {'raw': raw_msg}
if thread_id:
# For properly treating the thread in sender side
new_email['threadId'] = thread_id

    return gmail_client.users().messages().send(
        userId='me', body=new_email,
    ).execute()

In order to get the in_reply_to as an example we make a fake message id,
this is directly the previous in_reply_to:
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.utils import make_msgid
@staticmethod
def get_fake_message_id(idstring=None):
"""Get a fake message id (for threading).

    :param idstring: An optional string as in email.utils.make_msgid.
    """
    return make_msgid(idstring)

I hope it helps!
Zorion

On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 9:32 PM Chen Mor [e-mail] wrote:

I'm also interested in your solution @zorion https://github.com/zorion

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[sudb97]

Hi Zorion,

Thanks for the help. Can you please tell me how to get the MIME Message-ID header for the the message['In-Reply-To'] and message['References'] field.
I have generated a fake string using the method you told and I am getting something like:

<160386124446.10116.2885793118650215377@LAPTOP-FFPUFH6K>

But in most cases the message-id seems to be something like:

I am not able to generate @mail.gmail.com part or should i retrieve it from the mail I sent(for which i want to sent the reply to)?

[zorion]

Hi sudb97,

I had similar fake-ids and they worked for my purposes.
I mean, after the "@" I had the hostname of the server I'm using which
isn't a valid internet domain name, but it's ok in my case.

Did you try using this weird fake id? It may work for you as well.

Best regards
Zorion

El dc., 28 d’oct. 2020, 6:03, sudb97 [e-mail] va escriure:

Hi Zorion,

Thanks for the help. Can you please tell me how to get the MIME
Message-ID header for the the message['In-Reply-To'] and
message['References'] field.
I have generated a fake string using the method you told and I am getting
something like:

160386124446.10116.2885793118650215377@LAPTOP-FFPUFH6K

But in most cases the message-id seems to be something like:

CAGvK4+W5G3KnYQmjvcpTJ=[e-mail]

I am not able to generate @mail.gmail.com part or should i retrieve it
from the mail I sent(for which i want to sent the reply to)?

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[sudb97]

Hi Zorion,

Yes i tried using fake-ids, it wasn't working.

But i used https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/reference/rest/v1/users.messages/get?authuser=1 gmail API to get my message-id. It worked fine.

Gmail automatically assigns a Message-id to the mail you are sending via its api.

I was just not able to get the correct api request.

Now i am able to thread all the replies.

Just working on how to retrieve the message-ids for email sent via my python code. Then will be able to send replies that will be chained.

Thanks for your code though :)

[zorion]

Hi sudb97!
I'm glad you have something working!

I am not sure we are doing the same so in case my needs can fit yours I add
a metadata sample.
It works for us with the following metadata (with some part redacted just
in case).

In-Reply-To: <
[email protected].redacted*.internal>
References: <
[email protected].redacted*.internal>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 04:30:24 -0800
Message-ID:

When I send the e-mail I do include "In-Reply-To" and "References".
This is the fake ID, and my first e-mail already "replies" to the fake id
e-mail.
The field Message-Id I don't send, it is generated way after I send the
"send e-mail" request. I assume the send request is not directly a send, so
the e-mail doesn't have a message-id until it is indeed sent in the
server's background (this is an assumption on why the send request doesn't
return the message-id).

This meta data above I got from the e-mail I sent in my GMAIL web ui
message -> 3 vertical dots -> show-original

So the process was:
1) I generated a fake message-id from the server and I got
[email protected].redacted*.internal
2) I made the e-mail with the in-reply-to and references including the
fake id generated
3) I requested gmail api to send the first e-mail with those fields sets
4) I requested gmail api to send the other e-mail with those fields set
same way (same in-reply-to and references)
5) I can see all of them in the same thread and I can now get the
message-id if I wanted to.

On the other hand, technically I assume that it works like this:
I tell gmail that I have a (fake) local e-mail I am replying to with the
fake id that may be currently deleted.
I tell gmail that all e-mails I am sending are direct replies to that same
fake local e-mail.
GMail groups all these e-mails because they are related, they are a
conversation to the fake e-mail, but they don't have dependencies to each
other except for the timestamps so Gmail groups them and sorts them by
timestamp.
I am not sure this is the case but it works for us like a charm!

If you send the first e-mail and want to use its message id you are doing
it properly, but you will need to wait until the message-id is indeed
generated which may not be immediate.

Of course you may dismiss this e-mail since it's a workaround and you have
your own workaround.
Having the message-id in the send-email-request is what both of us would
miss.

Best regards,
Zorion

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 7:44 AM sudb97 [e-mail] wrote:

Hi Zorion,

Yes i tried using fake-ids, it wasn't working.

But i used https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/reference/rest/v1/users.messages/get?authuser=1
https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/reference/rest/v1/users.messages/get?authuser=1
gmail API to get my message-id. It worked fine.

Gmail automatically assigns a Message-id to the mail you are sending via
its api.

I was just not able to get the correct api request.

Now i am able to thread all the replies.

Just working on how to retrieve the message-ids for email sent via my
python code. Then will be able to send replies that will be chained.

Thanks for your code though :)

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