How do I get full messages and attachments from my Gmail inbox using an API?

Question

I want to download an entire inbox (email body text and attachments) from my Gmail. Using message IDs, I can get Gmail.Message objects, but these only appear to contain snippets (about 200 characters).

For C#, is there a way to get the whole inbox in XML format using the Gmail API?

What is the API call you make exactly? Can you provide the HTTP Request please? — gretro

lachlanvandervelden lachlanvandervelden · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-31T00:58:49

Looking at the API you would need to make a request to /users/me/threads then to users/me/threads/<id>within that response there is a body.data value that is base 64 encoded. I am not 100% sure with the c# API but i assume that you would do something like:

var request = service.Users.Threads.List("me");

var labels = request.Execute().Threads;
foreach(var thread in lables){
    var threadReqeust = service.Users.Threads.Get("me", thread.Id);
    var data = threadReqeust.Execute();
    //you have your entire message now
}

(do take note that this is semi pusudo code, as i have not checked this with the gmail api)

(https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/v1/reference/users/threads/list) (https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/v1/reference/users/threads/get) "An attachment ID is present if the body data is contained in a separate attachment."

Another option is to always login with IMAP (using ImapX or equivalent), and collect data that way, but using the API would be better.

How do I get full messages and attachments from my Gmail inbox using an API?

3 Answers