Email

The Email connector lets you perform insert, delete, update, and read operations on IMAP database.

Before you begin

Note:

• The email connector supports only username and password authentication for the mail servers. Therefore, you can't create a connection to a mail server that requires a different authentication, such as OAuth 2.0.
• Starting May 30, 2022, Google no longer supports the use of third-party applications or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google account using only your username and password. Hence, you can't connect to Gmail by using the email connector.

Before using the Email connector, do the following tasks:

• In your Google Cloud project:
  • Ensure that network connectivity is set up. For information about network patterns, see Network connectivity.
  • Grant the roles/connectors.admin IAM role to the user configuring the connector.
  • Grant the following IAM roles to the service account that you want to use for the connector:
    • roles/secretmanager.viewer
    • roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor

    A service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs. If you don't have a service account, you must create a service account. For more information, see Creating a service account.

  • Enable the following services:
    • secretmanager.googleapis.com (Secret Manager API)
    • connectors.googleapis.com (Connectors API)

    To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.

  If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.

Configure the connector

Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:

1. In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Go to the Connections page

2. Click + Create new to open the Create Connection page.
3. In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
   1. Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.

      For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.

   2. Click Next.
4. In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
   1. Connector: Select Email from the drop down list of available Connectors.
   2. Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
   3. In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.

      Connection names must meet the following criteria:

      • Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
      • Letters must be lower-case.
      • Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
      • Connection names cannot exceed 49 characters.
   4. (Optional) Description: Enter a description for the connection.
   5. Optionally, enable Cloud logging, and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to Error.
   6. Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
   7. Protocol: The type of email server to connect to. Valid values are IMAP and POP.
   8. Verbosity Level: This field determines the amount of detail that you want to include in the log file. Valid values range from 1 to 5. A higher verbosity level logs all the communication details including the request, response, and SSL certificates.
   9. Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
      • Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
      • Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.

      A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.

   Note: You can customize the connection node values only if you are a Pay-as-you-go customer.
   10. Use proxy: Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection and configure the following values:
   • Proxy Auth Scheme: Select the authentication type to authenticate with the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
     • Basic: Basic HTTP authentication.
     • Digest: Digest HTTP authentication.
   • Proxy User: A user name to be used to authenticate with the proxy server.
   • Proxy Password: The Secret manager secret of the user's password.
   • Proxy SSL Type: The SSL type to use when connecting to the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
     • Auto: Default setting. If the URL is an HTTPS URL, then the Tunnel option is used. If the URL is an HTTP URL, then the NEVER option is used.
     • Always: The connection is always SSL enabled.
     • Never: The connection is not SSL enabled.
     • Tunnel: The connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy.
   • In the Proxy Server section, enter details of the proxy server.
     1. Click + Add destination.
     2. Select a Destination Type.
        • Host address: Specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.

          If you want to establish a private connection to your backend system, do the following:

          • Create a PSC service attachment.
          • Create an endpoint attachment and then enter the details of the endpoint attachment in the Host address field.
   11. Optionally, click + Add label to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
   12. Click Next.
5. In the Destinations section, enter details of the name or address of the mail server that you want to connect to. The server supports both IMAP or POP protocols.
   1. Destination Type: Select a Destination Type. For example, enter the host address and the port number. For example, host address is outlook.office365.com and port is 993.
      • Select Host address from the list to specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
      • If you want to establish a private connection to your backend systems, select Endpoint attachment from the list, and then select the required endpoint attachment from the Endpoint Attachment list.
        Note: To understand how to create an endpoint attachment, see PSC service attachment and endpoint attachment. After you have created the endpoint attachment, it will be visible in the Endpoint Attachment list.

      If you want to establish a public connection to your backend systems with additional security, you can consider configuring static outbound IP addresses for your connections, and then configure your firewall rules to allowlist only the specific static IP addresses.

   2. If you want to send email, add the SMTP server details in the SMTPServer section by clicking +Add destination. Then, do the following:
      • Enter the host address and the port number. For example, host address is smtp-mail.outlook.com and port is 587.
   3. Click Next.
6. In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
   1. Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.

      The following authentication types are supported by the Email connection:

      • Username and password

   To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.

   2. Click Next.
7. Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
8. Click Create.

Configure authentication

Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.

• Username and password
  • Username: The user of the Email account used to authenticate.
  • Password: Secret Manager Secret containing the password of the email account used to authenticate.

Entities, operations, and actions

All the Integration Connectors provide a layer of abstraction for the objects of the connected application. You can access an application's objects only through this abstraction. The abstraction is exposed to you as entities, operations, and actions.

Note: You can view the entities, operations, and actions of a connector in the Connectors task.

• Entity: An entity can be thought of as an object, or a collection of properties, in the connected application or service. The definition of an entity differs from a connector to a connector. For example, in a database connector, tables are the entities, in a file server connector, folders are the entities, and in a messaging system connector, queues are the entities.

  However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support or have any entities, in which case the Entities list will be empty.

• Operation: An operation is the activity that you can perform on an entity. You can perform any of the following operations on an entity:
  • List
  • Get
  • Create
  • Update
  • Delete

  Selecting an entity from the available list, generates a list of operations available for the entity. For a detailed description of the operations, see the Connectors task's entity operations. However, if a connector doesn't support any of the entity operations, such unsupported operations aren't listed in the Operations list.

• Action: An action is a first class function that is made available to the integration through the connector interface. An action lets you make changes to an entity or entities, and vary from connector to connector. Normally, an action will have some input parameters, and an output parameter. However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support any action, in which case the Actions list will be empty.

Note: All entities and actions will have a schema associated with them. For example, an action schema will have the parameter details such as; the parameter names, and its corresponding data type. The schema (metadata) for entities and actions is fetched by the connection at runtime from your backend. If there are any updates to the schema, such updates won't be automatically reflected in your existing connections; you must manually refresh the schema. To refresh the schema for a connection, open the Connection details page of the connection, and then click Refresh connection schema.

System limitations

The Email connector can process 1 transaction per second, per node, and throttles any transactions beyond this limit. By default, Integration Connectors allocates 2 nodes (for better availability) for a connection.

For information on the limits applicable to Integration Connectors, see Limits.

Note: The number of Integration Connectors nodes will autoscale dynamically based on your usage. However, if you want to reserve capacity for large volumes without waiting for autoscaling, you can adjust the minimum node value for a connection. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection. Conversely, fewer nodes are required if a connection processes fewer transactions. To configure the node values, do the following:

• If you are a pay-as-you-go customer, configure the minimum and maximum node value in the edit connection page.
• If you are a subscription based customer, contact support.

The maximum transactions that a node can handle depends on various factors. So, before adjusting the minimum nodes for better throughput, it is recommended you check if your backend systems are set up optimally to handle the required traffic.

Actions

This section lists the actions supported by the connector. To understand how to configure the actions, see Action examples.

Note: The results of all the actions will be available as a JSON response in the Connectors task's connectorOutputPayload response parameter after you run your integration.

MoveEmails action

Input parameters of the MoveEmails action

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
Description	String	Yes	The mailbox where the message will be moved.
Mailbox	String	Yes	The mailbox where the message is currently located.
Id	String	Yes	This inputs indicates the set of messages to operate on. It may consist of a single message id, a range of messages specified by two message numbers separated by ':' (e.g. '1:5'), and/or individual message numbers separated by ',' (e.g. '1:5,7,10').

For example on how to configure the MoveEmails action, see Action examples.

SendMailMessages action

Input parameters of the SendMailMessages action

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
BCC	String	No	The semicolon-separated list of names and email addresses of the BCCed recipients.
Priority	String	No	Priority of the mail message.
Sensitivity	String	No	Sensitivity of the mail message.
Attachment	String	Yes	Semicolon-separated list of the attachment file names (with path if reading from a file) included in the message.
MessageBody	String	Yes	The message body.
AttachmentData	String	Yes	Semicolon-separated list of the base-64-encoded attachment data included in the message. (You must still specify the filename in Attachments.
InlineImage	String	Yes	Semicolon-separated list of the inline image identifiers (cids) to be included in the message.
DeliveryNotification	String	No	Email address to send a delivery notification to.
InlineImageData	String	Yes	Semicolon-separated list of the base-64-encoded image data to be included in the message.
CC	String	No	The semicolon-separated list of names and email addresses of the CCed recipients.
InlineImageContent	String	No	The content as InputStream to be uploaded.
From	String	No	The email address of the sender.
To	String	No	The semicolon-separated list of names and email addresses of the recipients.
Subject	String	Yes	The subject of the mail message.
AttachmentContent	String	No	The content as InputStream to be uploaded.
Charset	String	No	The character set to use in the message.
ReadReceipt	String	No	Email address to send a read receipt to.
IsHTML	String	No	Whether the email is HTML or plain text.
Importance	String	No	Importance of the mail message.

For example on how to configure the SendMailMessages action, see Action examples.

SetLabels action

Input parameters of the SetLabels action

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
OperationType	String	Yes	This indicates weather the specified labels should be added,removed or replace existing labels list.
Mailbox	String	Yes	The Gmail mailbox where the message is located.
Id	String	Yes	This inputs indicates the set of messages to operate on. It may consist of a single message id, a range of messages specified by two message numbers separated by ':' (e.g. '1:5'), and/or individual message numbers separated by ',' (e.g. '1:5,7,10').
Label	String	Yes	List of labels to be set to the message specified by the MessageSet property. This input should be set to a comma separate list of labels.

For example on how to configure the SetLabels action, see Action examples.

SetFlag action

Input parameters of the SetFlag action

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
OperationType	String	Yes	This indicates weather the specified flags should be added,removed or replace existing flags list.
Mailbox	String	Yes	The mailbox where the message is located.
Id	String	Yes	This inputs indicates the set of messages to operate on. It may consist of a single message id, a range of messages specified by two message numbers separated by ':' (e.g. '1:5'), and/or individual message numbers separated by ',' (e.g. '1:5,7,10').
Flags	String	Yes	Sets the specified flags to the message specified by message set. (e.g., Seen, Deleted, Draft,flagged). Flags should be specified as comma separated list(e.g. Seen,Deleted,flagged)

For example on how to configure the SetFlag action, see Action examples.

Examples

Action examples

Example - Move an email

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Actions.
2. Select the MoveEmails action, and then click Done.
3. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

    {
   "Destination": "Inbox",
   "Mailbox": "Archive",
   "Id": "1"
   }

If the action is successful, the MoveEmails task's connectorOutputPayload response parameter will have a value similar to the following:

[{
"Success": "true",
"rss:title": "Message(s) moved successfully."
}] 

Example - Send an email

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Actions.
2. Select the SendMailMessages action, and then click Done.
3. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

    {
   "MessageBody": "This mail is generated by using action sendmailmessage for outlook server.",
   "To": "[e-mail]",
   "Subject": "Outlook SMTP\n server."
   }

If the action is successful, the SendMailMessages task's connectorOutputPayload response parameter will have a value similar to the following:

[{
 "MessageId": "[e-mail]"
}]

Example - Send mail with attachment

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Actions.
2. Select the SendMailMessages action, and then click Done.
3. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

    {
   "MessageBody": "This mail is generated by using action sendmailmessage for outlook server.",
   "To": "[e-mail]",
   "Subject": "Outlook SMTP PDF Mail.",
   "Attachment": "Testing.pdf",
   "AttachmentData": "JVBERi0xLjQKJcOkw7zDtsOfCjIgMCBvYmoKPDwvTGVuz1xj6j3/gb09Wma83/dLbs7L9N03T/dHh6ArlrRiZdCU98lR5A3h9FD
   ...[too long to view on UI. Please download the log to view the full content.]
   }    

If the action is successful, the SendMailMessages task's connectorOutputPayload response parameter will have a value similar to the following:

[{
"MessageId": "[e-mail]"
}]

Example - Set labels

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Actions.
2. Select the SetLabels action, and then click Done.
3. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

    {
   "Labels": "GoogleCloud_Testing",
   "OperationType": "ADD",
   "Mailbox": "Inbox",
   "Id": "1"
   }

If the action is successful, the SetLabels task's connectorOutputPayload response parameter will have a value similar to the following:

[{
"Success": "true",
"rss:title": "Message labels set correctly."
}]

Example - Set flag

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Actions.
2. Select the SetFlag action, and then click Done.
3. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

   {
   "Mailbox": "Sent",
   "Id": "1",
   "Flags": "Draft",
   "OperationType": "ADD"
   }

If the action is successful, the SetFlag task's connectorOutputPayload response parameter will have a value similar to the following:

[{
"Success": "true",
"rss:title": "Message flags set correctly."
}]

Example - Set flag to particular mail

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Actions.
2. Select the SetFlag action, and then click Done.
3. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

   {
   "Mailbox": "Sent",
   "Id": "1",
   "Flags": "Flagged",
   "OperationType": "ADD"
   }

If the action is successful, the SetFlag task's connectorOutputPayload response parameter will have a value similar to the following:

[{
"Success": "true",
"rss:title": "Message flags set correctly."
}]

Entity operation examples

This section shows how to perform some of the entity operations in this connector.

Example - List all emails

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Inbox from the Entity list.
3. Select the LIST operation, and then click Done.
4. Optionally, in Task Input section of the Connectors task, you can filter your result set by specifying a filter clause. Specify the filter clause value always within the single quotes (').

Example - Get a single email

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Inbox from the Entity list.
3. Select the GET operation, and then click Done.
4. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click EntityId and then enter 1 in the Default Value field.

   Here, 1 is a unique record ID in the Inbox entity.

Example - Delete an email

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Inbox from the Entity list.
3. Select the DELETE operation, and then click Done.
4. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click entityId and then enter 1 in the Default Value field.

Note: If your entity has a composite primary key, you can specify a filter clause.

Use terraform to create connections

You can use the Terraform resource to create a new connection.

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.

To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.

When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
protocol	STRING	True	The type of email server to connect to.
proxy_enabled	BOOLEAN	False	Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection.
proxy_auth_scheme	ENUM	False	The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: BASIC, DIGEST, NONE
proxy_user	STRING	False	A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
proxy_password	SECRET	False	A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
proxy_ssltype	ENUM	False	The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: AUTO, ALWAYS, NEVER, TUNNEL

Use the Email connection in an integration

After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.

• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.

Get help from the Google Cloud community

You can post your questions and discuss this connector in the Google Cloud community at Cloud Forums.

What's next

• Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
• Understand how to monitor connector usage.
• Understand how to view connector logs.