Gmail MCP: get_thread with FULL_CONTENT returns snippet only — no message body
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
- Connect claude.ai Gmail integration via
/mcpin Claude Code - Call
get_threadwithmessageFormat: FULL_CONTENTon any thread ID - 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_messagetool 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 —
MINIMALandFULL_CONTENTboth return the same snippet-only output.
Environment
- Claude Code CLI
- claude.ai Gmail MCP integration (OAuth)
- Tool:
mcp__claude_ai_Gmail__get_thread
This issue has 3 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗