messages¶
The messages API first appeared in Thunderbird 66.
Note
When the term messageId is used in these documents, it doesn’t refer to the Message-ID
email header. It is an internal tracking number that does not remain after a restart. Nor does
it follow an email that has been moved to a different folder.
Warning
Some functions in this API potentially return a lot of messages. Be careful what you wish for! See Working with Message Lists for more information.
Permissions¶
Move, copy, or delete your email messages
Read your email messages and mark or tag them
Functions¶
list(folder)¶
continueList(messageListId)¶
Returns the next chunk of messages in a list. See Working with Message Lists for more information.
Parameters
messageListId
(string)
Return type (Promise)
Required permissions
get(messageId)¶
Returns a specified message.
Parameters
messageId
(integer)
Return type (Promise)
Required permissions
getFull(messageId)¶
Returns a specified message, including all headers and MIME parts.
Parameters
messageId
(integer)
Return type (Promise)
Required permissions
getRaw(messageId)¶
– [Added in TB 72, backported to TB 68.7]
Returns the unmodified source of a message as a binary string, which is a simple series of 8-bit values. If the message contains non-ASCII characters, the body parts in the binary string cannot be read directly and must be decoded according to their character sets. Use getFull(messageId) to get the correctly decoded parts. Manually decoding the raw message is probably too error-prone, especially if the message contains MIME parts with different character set encodings or attachments.
To get a readable version of the raw message as it appears in Thunderbird’s message source view, it may be sufficient to decode the message according to the character set specified in its main content-type header (example: text/html; charset=UTF-8) using the following function (see MDN for supported input encodings):
/**
* Decodes a binary string using the given encoding format and returns a
* JavaScript string. Produces mangled output if used with anything but a binary
* input string.
*/
function decodeBinaryString(binaryString, inputEncoding = "utf-8") {
const buffer = new Uint8Array(binaryString.length);
for (let i = 0; i < binaryString.length; i++) {
buffer[i] = binaryString.charCodeAt(i) & 0xFF;
}
let decoder = new TextDecoder(inputEncoding);
return decoder.decode(buffer);
}
Parameters
messageId
(integer)
Return type (Promise)
string
Required permissions
query(queryInfo)¶
– [Added in TB 69, backported to TB 68.2]
Gets all messages that have the specified properties, or all messages if no properties are specified.
Parameters
queryInfo
(object)
[author]
(string)
Returns only messages with this value matching the author.
[body]
(string)
Returns only messages with this value in the body of the mail.
[flagged]
(boolean)
Returns only flagged (or unflagged if false) messages.
Returns only messages from the specified folder. The permission is required.
Returns only messages with a date after this value.
[fromMe]
(boolean)
Returns only messages with the author matching any configured identity.
[fullText]
(string)
Returns only messages with this value somewhere in the mail (subject, body or author).
[recipients]
(string)
Returns only messages with this value matching one or more recipients.
[subject]
(string)
Returns only messages with this value matching the subject.
Returns only messages with the specified tags. For a list of available tags, call the listTags method. Querying for messages that must not have a tag does not work.
Returns only messages with a date before this value.
[toMe]
(boolean)
Returns only messages with one or more recipients matching any configured identity.
[unread]
(boolean)
Returns only unread (or read if false) messages.
Return type (Promise)
Required permissions
update(messageId, newProperties)¶
Marks or unmarks a message as read, flagged, or tagged.
Parameters
messageId
(integer)
newProperties
(object)
[flagged]
(boolean)
Marks the message as flagged or unflagged.
[junk]
(boolean)
– [Added in TB 73, backported to TB 68.7]
Marks the message as junk or not junk.
[read]
(boolean)
Marks the message as read or unread.
[tags]
(array of string)
Sets the tags on the message. For a list of available tags, call the listTags method.
Required permissions
move(messageIds, destination)¶
Moves messages to a specified folder.
Parameters
messageIds
(array of integer)
The IDs of the messages to move.
The folder to move the messages to.
Required permissions
copy(messageIds, destination)¶
Copies messages to a specified folder.
Parameters
messageIds
(array of integer)
The IDs of the messages to copy.
The folder to copy the messages to.
Required permissions
delete(messageIds, [skipTrash])¶
Deletes messages, or moves them to the trash folder.
Parameters
messageIds
(array of integer)
The IDs of the messages to delete.
[skipTrash]
(boolean)
If true, the message will be permanently deleted without warning the user. If false or not specified, it will be moved to the trash folder.
Required permissions
archive(messageIds)¶
Archives messages using the current settings.
Parameters
messageIds
(array of integer)
The IDs of the messages to archive.
Required permissions
listTags()¶
Returns a list of tags that can be set on messages, and their human-friendly name, colour, and sort order.
Return type (Promise)
array of MessageTag
Required permissions
Events¶
onNewMailReceived(folder, messages)¶
– [Added in TB 75]
Fired when a new message is received, and has been through junk classification and message filters.
Required permissions
Types¶
MessageHeader¶
object
author
(string)
bccList
(array of string)
ccList
(array of string)
date
(date)
flagged
(boolean)
The permission is required for this property to be included.
id
(integer)
junk
(boolean)
– [Added in TB 74]
junkScore
(integer)
– [Added in TB 74]
read
(boolean)
recipients
(array of string)
subject
(string)
tags
(array of string)
MessageList¶
See Working with Message Lists for more information.
MessagePart¶
Represents an email message “part”, which could be the whole message
object
[body]
(string)
The content of the part
[contentType]
(string)
[headers]
(object)
An object of part headers, with the header name as key, and an array of header values as value
[name]
(string)
Name of the part, if it is a file
[partName]
(string)
Any sub-parts of this part
[size]
(integer)
MessageTag¶
object
color
(string)
Tag color
key
(string)
Distinct tag identifier – use this string when referring to a tag
ordinal
(string)
Custom sort string (usually empty)
tag
(string)
Human-readable tag name
TagsDetail¶
Used for filtering messages by tag in various methods. Note that functions using this type may have a partial implementation.
object
mode
(string)
Whether all of the tag filters must apply, or any of them.
Supported values:
all
any
tags
(object)
Object keys are tags to filter on, values are true if the message must have the tag, or false if it must not have the tag. For a list of available tags, call the listTags() method.