Working with Drafts

Java

Creating an email message can be greatly simplified with the MimeMessage class in the javax.mail.internet package. The following example shows how to create the email message, including the headers (download the example):

    /**
     * Create a MimeMessage using the parameters provided.
     *
     * @param to email address of the receiver
     * @param from email address of the sender, the mailbox account
     * @param subject subject of the email
     * @param bodyText body text of the email
     * @return the MimeMessage to be used to send email
     * @throws MessagingException
     */
    public static MimeMessage createEmail(String to,
                                          String from,
                                          String subject,
                                          String bodyText)
            throws MessagingException {
        Properties props = new Properties();
        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);

        MimeMessage email = new MimeMessage(session);

        email.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
        email.addRecipient(javax.mail.Message.RecipientType.TO,
                new InternetAddress(to));
        email.setSubject(subject);
        email.setText(bodyText);
        return email;
    }

The next step is to encode the MimeMessage, instantiate a Message object, and set the base64url encoded message string as the value of the raw property.

    /**
     * Create a message from an email.
     *
     * @param emailContent Email to be set to raw of message
     * @return a message containing a base64url encoded email
     * @throws IOException
     * @throws MessagingException
     */
    public static Message createMessageWithEmail(MimeMessage emailContent)
            throws MessagingException, IOException {
        ByteArrayOutputStream buffer = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        emailContent.writeTo(buffer);
        byte[] bytes = buffer.toByteArray();
        String encodedEmail = Base64.encodeBase64URLSafeString(bytes);
        Message message = new Message();
        message.setRaw(encodedEmail);
        return message;
    }

Once you have a created a Message, you can create a Draft object and pass it to the drafts.create method.

    /**
     * Create draft email.
     *
     * @param service an authorized Gmail API instance
     * @param userId user's email address. The special value "me"
     * can be used to indicate the authenticated user
     * @param emailContent the MimeMessage used as email within the draft
     * @return the created draft
     * @throws MessagingException
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public static Draft createDraft(Gmail service,
                                    String userId,
                                    MimeMessage emailContent)
            throws MessagingException, IOException {
        Message message = createMessageWithEmail(emailContent);
        Draft draft = new Draft();
        draft.setMessage(message);
        draft = service.users().drafts().create(userId, draft).execute();

        System.out.println("Draft id: " + draft.getId());
        System.out.println(draft.toPrettyString());
        return draft;
    }

Python

The following code sample demonstrates creating a MIME message, encoding to a base64url string, and assigning it to the raw field of the Message resource (download example):

def create_message(sender, to, subject, message_text):
  """Create a message for an email.

  Args:
    sender: Email address of the sender.
    to: Email address of the receiver.
    subject: The subject of the email message.
    message_text: The text of the email message.

  Returns:
    An object containing a base64url encoded email object.
  """
  message = MIMEText(message_text)
  message['to'] = to
  message['from'] = sender
  message['subject'] = subject
  return {'raw': base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_string())}

Once you have created a Message object, you can pass it to the drafts.create method to create a Draft object.

def create_draft(service, user_id, message_body):
  """Create and insert a draft email. Print the returned draft's message and id.

  Args:
    service: Authorized Gmail API service instance.
    user_id: User's email address. The special value "me"
    can be used to indicate the authenticated user.
    message_body: The body of the email message, including headers.

  Returns:
    Draft object, including draft id and message meta data.
  """
  try:
    message = {'message': message_body}
    draft = service.users().drafts().create(userId=user_id, body=message).execute()

    print 'Draft id: %s\nDraft message: %s' % (draft['id'], draft['message'])

    return draft
  except errors.HttpError, error:
    print 'An error occurred: %s' % error
    return None