I’m working on an Android application and need to implement email functionality with specific requirements.
My app needs to:
- Send emails directly through the primary Gmail account on the device
- Skip the account selection dialog completely
- Automatically dispatch the email when user taps my custom send button
- Avoid launching Gmail’s compose interface
Basically, I want the email sending to happen in the background without any Gmail UI appearing.
Is there a way to achieve this programmatically? I’ve been looking into different approaches but haven’t found a clear solution yet.
Bonus question: Can I prevent users from modifying the recipient, subject line, or message content once the email sending process starts? What would be the best approach for this?
Gmail API integration is your best bet. I did this on my last project when we needed silent email sending. You’ll authenticate with OAuth2 and use the Gmail REST API to send messages programmatically. The tricky part is getting the initial auth flow right - after that, store the refresh token and send emails without any UI. To prevent user modifications, handle everything server-side or in your app logic before the API call. You’ll need to manage rate limiting and error handling too. More complex than intents but gives you complete control.
You can’t directly integrate Gmail without user consent - security restrictions won’t allow it. But I built something similar using Firebase Cloud Functions with Nodemailer. Here’s how it works: your app sends email data to your backend, which handles the actual SMTP sending through Gmail’s servers. Set up app-specific passwords in Gmail settings and use those credentials server-side. Your Android app just makes an API call to your backend - no Gmail UI pops up, and users can’t modify content since everything’s processed remotely. You’ll need server infrastructure, but you get complete control over email sending while staying secure.
yeah, totally get why u wanna skip the ui, but Gmail’s got those security settings in place. maybe check out using JavaMail with SMTP, but be careful with user info. otherwise, intents with pre-filled msg is the safer bet.