I’m wondering if it’s still possible to build contextual gadgets for Gmail these days?
I’ve been trying to get this working for about 48 hours now and I’m totally stuck. The documentation seems really outdated and I can’t find any recent posts about this topic. I followed what I thought were the right steps but nothing shows up in Gmail.
Here’s what I did:
Setup Process:
Made a new XML file in Google Drive with sample gadget code
Set up a project in the developer console
Enabled the Google Apps Marketplace SDK
Created OAuth credentials (tried both web app and service account types)
Configured the marketplace listing with icons and descriptions
Verified it appears in the admin console as enabled
Sent test emails with the target keywords
Checked Gmail with cache disabled
Tried with both admin and regular user accounts
Result: Absolutely nothing appears in Gmail. No gadget, no errors, no indication anything is supposed to be there.
Has anyone gotten contextual gadgets working recently? Am I missing something obvious in the setup process? The whole thing feels like it might be deprecated but I can’t find any official word on that.
yeah, gadgets r pretty much dead now. google’s all about add-ons these days and they seem to work a lot better. the documentation is also more up-to-date. it’s a bummer, but they’re really done with gadgets.
I went through this exact frustration six months ago. Contextual gadgets are technically still supported, but Google’s basically abandoned them for Gmail Add-ons. The docs haven’t been updated since 2016 and the dev tools barely mention them anymore. Even when you follow every step perfectly, the gadgets often won’t render because Gmail’s interface has changed so much. OAuth still works, but the contextual extraction is unreliable at best. I switched to Gmail Add-ons with the new API and it’s way smoother. Contextual triggers actually work and Google maintains the docs. You’ll need to rewrite your code, but it beats endless hours debugging dead functionality.
Been there! Wasted weeks on this exact thing last year. Contextual gadgets are basically dead - Google never officially announced it, but they’ve been broken since around 2017 when they shifted focus to Gmail Add-ons. Your setup’s fine. The marketplace SDK exists and your COB extensions probably parse correctly on the backend, but Gmail just won’t display them reliably anymore. Security changes and interface updates killed the contextual extraction engine. Don’t waste more time on this. Just migrate to Gmail Add-ons - they handle contextual triggers differently and actually work with current Gmail.