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Gmail: Read a message — MCP tool

Gmail MCP tool: Fetches one email fully decoded — headers, text/HTML bodies and attachment metadata.

Technical name: get_message

What task it solves

I want to read one email in full.

Turns the Gmail API's base64url/MIME wire format into readable text: RFC 2047 headers decoded, bodies charset-decoded, attachments listed by name and size.

When to use it

After list_messages picked the message, or when the user pasted/named a specific email. To read a whole back-and-forth, use get_thread instead. Call it before replying — the reply needs this message's threadId and headers.messageId.

What to provide

  • message_id — required. From list_messages/get_thread output (not the RFC Message-ID header).
  • include_html — optional. Return the decoded HTML body even when a text body exists (default false).
  • max_body_chars — optional. Truncate each decoded body at this many characters (default 50000).
  • metadata_only — optional. Headers and structure only, no body content.

What it returns

id, threadId, labelIds, snippet, internalDate (ISO), decoded headers (from, to, cc, subject, date, messageId, inReplyTo, references), text (and html when applicable) with textTruncated/htmlTruncated flags, and attachments[] metadata: filename, mimeType, sizeBytes, attachmentId.

What changes in Gmail

Nothing — reading through the API does not mark the message as read (that is a deliberate label operation via modify_message).

Example request

Open the latest email from the bank and tell me what it says; list any attached documents.

Errors and limitations

Attachment content is never returned — only metadata; download bytes via raw_request (users/me/messages/<id>/attachments/<attachmentId>). Very large bodies arrive truncated with a flag — raise max_body_chars if the tail matters. A 404 usually means the id came from another mailbox or was permanently deleted. Access also depends on token permissions, quotas, and upstream API limits.

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Technical details