Gmail API release notes

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This page contains release notes for features and updates to the Gmail API. We recommend that Gmail API developers periodically check this list for any new announcements.

September 10, 2025

You can now use annotations to create Deal Cards in the Promotions tab. To get started, see the overview of Deal Cards.

May 20, 2025

For Google Workspace organizations that use hardware key encryption, the Gmail API supports using smart cards for client-side encryption (CSE). For details, see the reference documentation for CseIdentity and CseKeyPair resources.

November 12, 2019

The messages.import method uses a more performant backend implementation. The new version is API-compatible with the previous implementation and all clients automatically started using the new behavior as of a few weeks ago. The new backend supports parallel message.import calls efficiently and clients can now import messages in parallel for a user to achieve higher migration throughput. The quota cost of the message.import method has been decreased to reflect the new performance.

May 05, 2017

Deprecated Review Action, which sunsets on July 15th, 2017.

February 07, 2017

The history.list method supports filtering history records by type.

November 30, 2016

The messages.batchModify method lets you modify labels on multiple messages by message IDs, in a single batch operation.

November 01, 2016

The Gmail API supports a gmail.metadata scope. This scope gives developers access to a user's mailbox including history records, labels, and email headers, but not email body's or attachments.

July 01, 2016

New endpoints for managing mail settings:

The q request parameter for the drafts.list method restricts results to the messages matching the specified query.

February 25, 2016

The messages.batchDelete method lets you delete multiple messages, by message IDs, in a single batch operation.

January 13, 2016

The drafts.list method has an includeSpamTrash option, which determines if the response should include drafts with the SPAM or TRASHlabel applied. The default is currently set to true for this option.

June 22, 2015

To determine the full state of an email before and after a change, the history.list method returns all current Message.labelIds as part of the response in messagesAdded, messagesDeleted, labelsAdded, and labelsRemoved.

June 18, 2015

Added a Message.internalDate field that exposes the message's creation timestamp in the mailbox.

May 29, 2015

You can now send push notifications on mailbox updates, providing real-time server notification without the need for constant polling. With Cloud Pub/Sub, you can now use webhooks—for example, to receive callbacks when updates happen. Additionally, you can filter these notifications to specific Gmail labels.

March 31, 2015

New scopes for labels and inserting messages to better protect users and accommodate apps that don't need full mailbox data access:

March 18, 2015

The messages.insert method now supports the deleted request parameter and lets you set SENT and DRAFT labels.

February 25, 2015

The history.list method now provides details of the change type in each history record. For example, using the messagesAdded, messagesDeleted, labelsAdded, or labelsDeleted enums, it's possible to easily tell how a message was changed and typically avoids the need for additional calls to synchronize your client.

February 11, 2015

The messages.import method now supports the following parameters to better support Email Migration use cases:

  • neverMarkSpam
  • processForCalendar
  • deleted

January 23, 2015

You can now specify message.labelIds on messages.import requests to automatically apply the given labels to the message.

The default behavior no longer automatically adds INBOX and UNREAD labels to messages.import emails. When message.labelIds isn't specified, imported mail is only visible in All Mail. If you want INBOX or UNREAD labels applied, specify them in the message.labelIds field.

January 15, 2015

Increased the default per-user quotas from 25 units/user/second to 250 units/user/second and adjusted some method costs slightly.

October 22, 2014

You can now specify the return format for the threads.get method. The available formats are full, metadata, and minimal, similar to the messages.get method. The raw format isn't allowed for the threads.get to avoid unexpectedly large amounts of data being returned.

October 16, 2014

The getProfile method provides mailbox-wide information like current history ID and total message and thread counts.

October 06, 2014

Added a new IMPORTANT label to match functionality with the Gmail UI.

Added new fields to the Labels resource to simplify counting how many messages have a given label applied:

  • messagesTotal
  • messagesUnread
  • threadsTotal
  • threadsUnread

September 25, 2014

The messages.insert method defaults to using receivedTime and the messages.import method defaults to using dateHeader.

September 08, 2014

When you use the messages.get method, you can request the metadata return format to return only the email headers and metadata such as identifiers and labels.

September 02, 2014

You can specify the internalDateSource for both the messages.insert and messages.import methods.

July 11, 2014

Quota costs for all methods in the API have been reduced by a factor of 10. For example, if a method previously cost 150 quota units, it now costs 15. For a complete list of API method costs, see the per-method quota usage chart.

June 25, 2014

The Gmail API is publicly available!

October 28, 2013

The Review Action is out of preview, and now available to all users.

October 03, 2013

The Schema Validator tool in Testing Your Schemas has been replaced with the new Email Markup Tester.

July 23, 2013

It is now possible to use schemas to define Orders, Parcel Deliveries, and the TrackAction to let users track packages being delivered.

July 11, 2013

The RSVP Action is now enabled for all emails sent by Google Calendar.