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Gmail API

developers.google.com

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Re: Gmail API

#91

Post by OmarIsmail »

pud wrote: post #56
alooPotato wrote: post #17

We (Streak, YCS11) have been using this API for a few days to build our email snoozing feature ( https://www.streak.com/email-snooze-in-gmail ). The API is really nice to use and makes interacting with Gmail way easier relative to IMAP. I'm surprised they don't recommend using this API to build full email clients. I fully expected that to be one of the core use cases. The reason its hard (currently) to build a mail c…

If anyone wants to snooze email without auth'ing your Gmail account, here's one I built in 2008 that's still going strong. http://hitmelater.com/ It costs $30/yr for the high-end service but send me a note and I'll give you a link to signup for free.

One of the key differences between your solution (and fut.io, followup.cc) and our snooze is that we also do the conditional "but don't bring this back if there's a reply on this thread". Along with being able to "snooze" an email you're sending out with the conditional. This brings us much more in line with Boomerang's main functionality.

Plus our snoozing functionality is 100% free, no matter how many you schedule, or how long it's for :)

Oh, and you can see/edit/manage your snoozed emails all from right within Gmail.

And we also have the "Awaiting Reply" view that doesn't require you actually DO anything, other than send out emails. We show you a custom list of the last 20 emails you've sent that don't yet have a reply.

edit: added more about what features we have

Re: Gmail API

#92

Post by jaredmcateer »

0x0 wrote: post #90
nairteashop wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would you want to snooze an email? I use my Gmail inbox as sort of a todo list. If a conversation is in my Inbox, it needs attention from me - I need to do some work related to it, reply to it, forward it, etc. Once I'm done with an email thread, I immediately archive it. If you use this workflow (many do), snoozing an email is useful. I use it primarily for threads where I'm not able to reply and provide infor…

Sounds like you should start using flags instead ("stars" in web-gmail?) Then your todo list should be easily accessible through a filtered list of flagged messages. Most IMAP clients offer this out of the box.

I have labels for organization but once something is marked as read or out of my priority inbox (where starred emails go) is has an extremely low priority and might as well not exist. If it's in my inbox and unread it gives me anxiety not to action it. A Snooze feature is a perfect middle ground.

Re: Gmail API

#93

Post by JetSpiegel »

zacharycohn wrote: post #53
VogonWorkEthic wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your email is the least creepy thing Streak has access to. There's also a feature that tells the user when an email they've sent has been read.

You mean "read receipts" which have been around for decades?

And can be bypassed in most standalone clients

Re: Gmail API

#94

Post by XorNot »

duskwuff wrote: post #11
bpodgursky wrote: post #6

I like the idea of opening gmail up to developers via a public API, but I don't like that it comes at the cost of removing support for an open standard like IMAP. I'm worried that API access could be cut back or eliminated entirely in the future depending on developer uptake, leaving gmail entirely inaccessible to third-party applications. Edit: I'm going off of this sentence: >It will replace IMAP, a common but comp…

It doesn't sound as though they're removing IMAP. It's still the recommended API for mail client applications. This API is a new, separate option for applications that don't need access to all your mail.

Gmail don't implement IMAP properly anyway - the IDLE command in Gmail doesn't provide notification of changes in the number of unread messages, just the existence of new ones.

It was quite a shock to find when I stopped hosting my email via GetMail/Dovecot that my read messages wouldn't automatically propagate across my devices until I did a manual poll. Gmail seems to use some HTTP API for this rather then following the standard.

Re: Gmail API

#95

Post by lupin_sansei »

0x0 wrote: post #90
nairteashop wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would you want to snooze an email? I use my Gmail inbox as sort of a todo list. If a conversation is in my Inbox, it needs attention from me - I need to do some work related to it, reply to it, forward it, etc. Once I'm done with an email thread, I immediately archive it. If you use this workflow (many do), snoozing an email is useful. I use it primarily for threads where I'm not able to reply and provide infor…

Sounds like you should start using flags instead ("stars" in web-gmail?) Then your todo list should be easily accessible through a filtered list of flagged messages. Most IMAP clients offer this out of the box.

Gmail also offers a nifty "Starred First" view which keeps the last 10 or so starred emails at the top

http://i.imgur.com/0Vokq4C.png

Re: Gmail API

#96

Post by kurt_ »

yogo wrote: post #12
cliveowen wrote: post #5

This might be big, I was just done complaining about the user interface of the GMail web app. If this means that developers can now effectively create another interface on top of a real GMail API this has the potential to really change things. I can already envision several ways in how I could improve my inbox management and reduce the time spent sifting through emails.

It would be sweet if email, in general, was just a nice RESTful API.

It's not REST but it's an HTTP API proposal: http://jmap.io/

Re: Gmail API

#97

Post by roxtar »

This raises serious privacy concerns for me.

Technical users can and will block access to portions of the API during authenticatcaion, but what about people like my parents? They might very well login, giving full permissions to the app, seeing that it's a trusted google URL while not knowing what they have done.

This is going to open a new can of worms.

Re: Gmail API

#98

Post by jtmoulia »

LunaSea wrote: post #84
malandrew wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, I've never understood why more people didn't explore the multipart content type feature of email to extend email. It's typical to have plaintext and html in the same email, but why no JSON using a well defined and published JSON-schema.

Serious question: What is the use-case for email as a server communication protocol rather than say HTTP/s ? Is it to bypass firewalls in some way ?

Email allows someone to send me data, as opposed to HTTP/S which targets servers. Adding structured data to emails could allow natural language communication to have a machine readable view of the communication. And there's probably a lot more uses.

Re: Gmail API

#99

Post by jtmoulia »

jobu wrote: post #22

It would take something pretty amazing for me to allow anyone access to my gmail account. LinkedIn definitely made me skeptical on allowing even trustworthy-seeming companies access to my contacts.

Do you not give any applications IMAP access to your email?

Re: Gmail API

#100

Post by bgentry »

My only question: can you use these APIs to mute threads? That's the one major Gmail feature that could never be done with IMAP.
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