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Gmail API: New endpoints for settings

July 7, 2016
Brandon Jewett-Hall

Software Engineer, Gmail

Wesley Chun

Developer Advocate, Google Cloud

If you've been pining for a way to update your users' email signatures with a different inspirational quote each day or enable "Out of Office" auto-replies when their calendars are marked as busy, then you're in luck. Today, we're extending the Gmail API with new endpoints for managing settings. These new endpoints cover the following features:

  • Filters
  • Forwarding addresses and auto-forwarding
  • IMAP and POP settings
  • Send-as aliases
  • Signatures
  • Vacation responder
With this update, we're equipping developers with some new tools that have never been available in any previous Google API. These include the ability to:

  • Retrieve and update signatures for send-as aliases
  • Configure forwarding to external addresses
  • Configure send-as aliases that send mail through external providers
  • Use HTML in vacation messages
  • Manipulate settings for gmail.com accounts
Over time we'll continue to expand the API with additional settings features such as support for managing mailbox delegates, so stay tuned for more announcements.

Get started now

Most of the settings endpoints are available for any Google Apps or Gmail account, but a few sensitive operations, such as modifying send-as aliases or forwarding, are restricted to service accounts with domain-wide authority. See the reference docs for more details and to get started.

What about the existing Email Settings API in the Admin SDK?

This update to the Gmail API effectively replaces the older Email Settings API, so we're also announcing its deprecation today and will turn it down fully on July 7, 2017. We've put together a migration guide to assist clients in porting their existing integrations over to their newer counterparts in the Gmail API. If you have any issues, check out the gmail-api tag on StackOverflow.

We look forward to seeing what you build with these new features in the Gmail API!

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