Send email using Google API with only access token - node.js

Question

I want to send an email through Google API without the unnecessary OAUTH2 parameters. I only have the access_token and the refresh_token of that user.
How can I send an email through Gmail API through a basic POST request in NodeJS, with Request npm plugin?

Answer 1

abraham is correct, but I just thought I'd give you an example.
var request = require('request');
server.listen(3000, function () {
console.log('%s listening at %s', server.name, server.url);
// Base64-encode the mail and make it URL-safe
// (replace all "+" with "-" and all "/" with "_")
var encodedMail = new Buffer(
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"UTF-8\"\n" +
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n" +
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\n" +
"to: reciever#gmail.com\n" +
"from: sender#gmail.com\n" +
"subject: Subject Text\n\n" +
"The actual message text goes here"
).toString("base64").replace(/\+/g, '-').replace(/\//g, '_');
request({
method: "POST",
uri: "https://www.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/users/me/messages/send",
headers: {
"Authorization": "Bearer 'access_token'",
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"raw": encodedMail
})
},
function(err, response, body) {
if(err){
console.log(err); // Failure
} else {
console.log(body); // Success!
}
});
});
Don't forget to change the reciever and sender email address for the example to work.

Answer 2

There are two methods for attaching OAuth2 access_tokens to a Google API request.
Using the access_token query parameter like this: ?access_token=oauth2-token
Using the HTTP Authorization header like this: Authorization: Bearer oauth2-token
The second one is prefered for POST requests so the raw HTTP request for sending an email would look something like this.
POST /gmail/v1/users/me/messages/send HTTP/1.1
Host: www.googleapis.com
Authorization: Bearer oauth2Token
{"raw":"encodedMessage"}