Forward message using the Gmail API without using JavaMail

Question

Is there a way to use the Gmail API based Message object to forward a message without using the JavaMail library (Javax)?

Thanks.

Looking for a way to bounce the Message object to another recipient WITHOUT using any JAVAMAIL classes (MimeMessage for instance) So far no luck cause I'm pretty sure that the message's Raw will have to be re-encoded somehow.

Will love some help.

EDIT:

Found one solution which is equivalent to bouncing an message to another recipient. Thanks to Eric for the pointing me in the right direction. use the Gmail API get method for the specific email with "raw" format. decode the raw string from the parsed message->replace "To:" with new recipient address and re-encode the raw (base62url). Create a new message with newly encoded raw and send

Answer 1

Depends on what you mean by "Forward" I imagine. If you mean it in the "bounce message" of old mailers of yore (resend the exact same content to a new recipient without changing body or headers) then yeah should be trivial.

If, instead, you mean what more current mailers do when you forward it (set new From, To, Subject headers, include original To+Cc+From headers somewhere in the body below something like "Forwarded message" and your own user-added content) then you probably need to deal with something like javax.mail for those changes. If you're sure the emails are simple (e.g. just a text/plain part) you could attempt it without javax.mail and use the parsed Message object (format=FULL) to create a new email. But javax.mail is probably best.