Gmail MCP: get_thread with FULL_CONTENT returns snippet only — no message body

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Apr 27, 2026 by veroniquecho Closed Apr 27, 2026

Description

The get_thread tool on the claude.ai Gmail integration does not return the email message body even when messageFormat is set to FULL_CONTENT. Only the Gmail snippet (~200 chars) is returned.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Connect claude.ai Gmail integration via /mcp in Claude Code
  2. Call get_thread with messageFormat: FULL_CONTENT on any thread ID
  3. Inspect the response

Expected Behavior

Per the tool description:

FULL_CONTENT: Returns all information in "MINIMAL" plus the full body content of each message.

The response should include a body (or equivalent) field with the full message content.

Actual Behavior

The response only contains: date, id, sender, snippet, subject, toRecipients. No body field is present.

\\\json
{
"id": "19dbd29b05afcecd",
"messages": [{
"date": "2026-04-24T01:45:19Z",
"id": "19dbd29b05afcecd",
"sender": "noreply@tipalti.com",
"snippet": "Hi Veronique, A new purchase request is pending your approval...",
"subject": "...(req-941) is pending your approval",
"toRecipients": ["hyesun.cho@toolsforhumanity.com"]
}]
}
\
\\

Additional Context

  • OAuth scope confirmed correct: Google account shows "View your email messages" (full read access, not metadata-only). This is not a permissions issue.
  • Previously working: An older version of the Gmail integration offered a gmail_read_message tool that successfully returned full HTML email bodies. That tool is no longer available after reconnecting the Gmail integration.
  • Affected workflow: Any automation that relies on reading the full body of emails (e.g. parsing structured HTML content from transactional emails) is broken with the new integration.
  • Workaround: None currently available — MINIMAL and FULL_CONTENT both return the same snippet-only output.

Environment

  • Claude Code CLI
  • claude.ai Gmail MCP integration (OAuth)
  • Tool: mcp__claude_ai_Gmail__get_thread

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