Please add a TEMPLATE system label (or custom header, or similar) for Template drafts [168223591]

Assigned

Feature Request

Status Update

No update yet.

Description

ne...@mimestream.com

created issue #1

Sep 11, 2020 04:02PM

Gmail has the option to set up Templates to be used for outgoing messages (Settings > Advanced > Enable Templates).

These templates are returned by drafts.list, as messages with the DRAFT label, but there is no indication that it is a template and should not be shown to the user when they select Drafts. I also do not see any custom headers on the email to distinguish it from any regular draft.

Please consider adding a TEMPLATE system label, or a custom header, to distinguish these special template drafts from user-generated ones!

(Use case: I write Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail.)

Comments

ne...@mimestream.com <ne...@mimestream.com> #2Sep 12, 2020 12:11AM

(Unfortunately, several users deleted their templates by accident, as they saw them in Drafts and did not realize that they were actually templates)

go...@google.com <go...@google.com> #3Sep 14, 2020 07:51AM

Status: Won't Fix (Infeasible)

Hi !

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Unfortunatelly, as this feature request is related to the User Interface (UI) rather to any API features you should provide this feature request to the feedback team. To do so, once you are logged into Gmail, in the top right click the exclamation mark icon (Send feedback) and follow the instructions there. You can also follow this guide for providing feedback in Gmail.

Moreover, it is important to notice that there is a possible workaround to your case scenario using Gmail API and Google Sheets. You could create the template in a Spreadsheet and compose the email with it.

Best regards,

Message last modified on Sep 14, 2020 07:51AM

ne...@mimestream.com <ne...@mimestream.com> #4Sep 17, 2020 05:40PM

Hi there, can you please reconsider this resolution?

From the perspective of an API client, this is a data model issue. Pre-existing templates are returned as plain old drafts, with no indication that they are templates. Users are deleting them from our email client, thinking they are just stale drafts.

I'm just asking for some metadata to be on these messages when fetched via the API: A label, a custom header (X-Google-Template: Yes), anything like that.

br...@kraiger.net <br...@kraiger.net> #5Oct 21, 2020 08:30AM

I am one of the users who has accidentally deleted templates because of this lack of information. I would really like templates to be identifiable via the API.

ne...@mimestream.com <ne...@mimestream.com> #6Nov 18, 2020 09:40PM

I think there has been a miscommunication / misunderstanding here, resulting in a resolution of "Won't Fix" – which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I've re-opened this as https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/173628037.

ja...@google.com <ja...@google.com> Nov 19, 2020 09:14AM

Status: Assigned (reopened)

go...@google.com <go...@google.com> #7Nov 19, 2020 04:07PM

Hi !

Thank you for providing such valuable information. In order to gather all the necessary information, can you please provide the following information:

What impact would the inclusion of this feature request have on your business?

Many thanks!

go...@google.com <go...@google.com> #8Nov 27, 2020 03:58PM

Hi everyone !

Thank you all for the information provided. I have reported this feature request internally. We will keep you updated on this report.

Best regards,

[Deleted User] <[Deleted User]> #9Dec 2, 2020 07:37PM

I believe this feature would allow me to automate 'Welcome' emails to new employees. Following!

is...@google.com <is...@google.com> Apr 28, 2021 07:23AM

Status: New

ja...@gmail.com <ja...@gmail.com> #10Jul 5, 2021 03:54PM

Thanks for reporting this! I am also a user who accidentally deleted gmail templates since I couldn't tell they were drafts. Enabling some sort of flag or prop on the templates to make them distinguishable from drafts via API would be much appreciated.

[Deleted User] <[Deleted User]> #11Jan 5, 2022 03:20PM

I'm also a user that has been directly impacted by this. We have a variety of email templates that had been created for our new patients, and they got accidentally deleted when I saw an unread count in the Drafts drawer.

gp...@netskope.com <gp...@netskope.com> #12Jun 3, 2022 07:10PM

I agree with the Mimestream people. This is definitely an API data modeling issue. Your API provides access to two similar, but different resources. One of these are draft emails that the individual user created for themselves. The other are template emails that may have been created by the user or may have been installed by their Team Leader. If your API does not distinguish between these two different resources when it returns in the response to some form of GET request, your API is broken.

gu...@oeconline.org <gu...@oeconline.org> #13Jul 27, 2022 10:22PM

I have been directly, and severely impacted by this - I welcome Google working with the community to address this issue.

ma...@gmail.com <ma...@gmail.com> #14Oct 8, 2022 08:03PM

I'm a gmail user who was affected by this. Would love to see google fix this. Also, I'd argue this bug is a data correctness issue (drafts.list API returns invalid records (non-drafts) with no workaround), not a UI / feature request.

ad...@shape.energy <ad...@shape.energy> #15Jan 15, 2023 06:52PM

Please fix

mi...@gmail.com <mi...@gmail.com> #16Feb 17, 2023 10:17PM

please provide a way to identify drafts vs templates

jp...@google.com <jp...@google.com> Jul 13, 2023 02:35AM

Assigned to wo...@google.com.