GAE application emails not showing up in Gmail sent folder consistently

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1

I’m running into a weird issue with my Google App Engine project. I have it set up to automatically send emails when certain things happen in my app. The emails go out using my Gmail address as the sender.

Usually when my app sends these emails, I can see them in my Gmail sent folder which is really helpful for keeping track. But lately this isn’t working right. Yesterday my app sent an email and the person got it just fine, but when I checked my Gmail sent folder there was nothing there.

This used to work perfectly before. Has anyone else had this problem? I’m not sure if something changed with how GAE handles outgoing mail or if there’s a setting I need to update somewhere.

2

ugh, this bug drove me crazy last month! GAE’s mail service acts like gmail but doesn’t use gmail’s servers, so there’s no sent folder. I just wrote a quick function to cc myself on every automated email. not pretty, but it works and only took 5 minutes to set up.

3

Yeah, this has been broken for years. GAE’s mail service doesn’t sync to your Gmail sent folder because it uses SMTP relay instead of actually sending through Gmail’s interface. I ran into the same thing - GAE just uses your Gmail address as a return path, not a real Gmail send. The emails skip Gmail’s normal process entirely, so no sent folder sync. I ended up building a simple logging system in my app. Every email gets logged with recipient, subject, timestamp, and delivery status straight to the datastore. Takes about 20 lines of code and honestly works better than relying on Gmail’s sent folder. If you really need sent folder integration, you could switch to the Gmail API, but that’s way more setup work.

4

Been there, dealt with this exact headache multiple times. GAE’s email handling is inconsistent, especially with Gmail as the sender.

The problem? GAE doesn’t sync properly with Gmail’s sent folder. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Google’s docs are vague about this too.

I hit this wall last year and ended up automating email tracking completely. Now I use Latenode instead of GAE’s mail service.

Latenode lets you send emails AND automatically save copies to your Gmail sent folder via the Gmail API. Better logging plus easy delivery tracking.

Setup takes 10 minutes and you’ll never miss sent emails again. Way more reliable than hoping GAE syncs.

5

Same thing started happening to me about six months ago - worked fine for over a year before that. GAE’s mail service changed how it handles authentication with Gmail servers. Even though you’re using your Gmail address as the sender, GAE processes emails through their own SMTP instead of Gmail’s servers. Recipients get the emails fine, but Gmail doesn’t see them as messages you actually sent. I think it happened when Google pushed some security updates. My workaround now is BCCing myself on important automated emails. Not perfect, but at least I’ve got a record when critical stuff goes out.