Only show these results:

Sent email messages not syncing

Sometimes, your sent email messages might not sync properly. This might be caused by one of the following situations:

  • The end user's email client stores sent email messages locally.
  • Nylas didn't recognize the Sent folder on an IMAP account.
  • The sync process is delayed.

Email messages are stored locally

Some email clients store sent email messages locally. In this case, Nylas cannot sync the email messages because they're stored on the end user's computer, not on the provider's servers.

To fix this, make one of the following changes:

Sent folder not recognized for IMAP account

If the end user's email provider uses IMAP, Nylas might not recognize the account's Sent folder for one of the following reasons:

  • Nylas cannot automatically detect the Sent folder.
  • The IMAP server hasn't designated the correct Sent folder.
  • The end user's folders are displayed in a language other than English.

To fix this, you must make an API request to find the folder type and, if applicable, set the Sent folder:

  1. Check the name of the folder. Make a GET /folders request and verify the name. If none of the returned folders have "name": "sent", this means Nylas has failed to detect the Sent folder. To be detected properly, "sent" must be lowercase.

    [
    {
    "account_id": "ed1yjlagyt8abfwgnr53eeqnd",
    "display_name": "INBOX",
    "id": "7xyvuimsxu2hburguqw9e4oy",
    "name": "inbox",
    "object": "folder"
    },
    {
    "account_id": "ed1yjlagyt8abfwgnr53eeqnd",
    "display_name": "Sent",
    "id": "cw1atz18w6ddfh988hf24hrwd",
    "name": null,
    "object": "folder"
    }
    ]
  2. Make a PUT /folder request to update the appropriate folder with the correct folder name.

    curl -X PUT 'https://api.nylas.com/folders/<FOLDER_ID>' \
    -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN' \
    -d '{
    "name": "sent"
    }'
  3. Check the folder name again. If the update was processed correctly, the folder's name should now be "sent".

Folder name versus display name

When determining the Sent folder, keep in mind the distinction between folder names and display names:

  • Folder name: A standard category type based on RFC-6154. Folders can have one of the following names: inbox, all, trash, archive, drafts, sent, spam, important, or null.
  • Display name: The localized name of the folder. This matches the name presented in the end user's email applications. If you're displaying folders, be sure to use display_name instead of name.

🔍 You can set the Sent folder for IMAP accounts only. For other providers, like Exchange and Gmail, the mail server is in charge of saving your sent email messages to the appropriate folder.

Sync delay

In some cases, there might be a sync delay or another issue (for example, throttling by the server) that prevents Nylas from pulling in email messages.

To fix this, you should do the following:

  • Review Nylas' Throttling documentation.
    • If the account is being throttled, Nylas won't be able to sync email messages until the throttling window expires.
  • Check the sync status in the Nylas Dashboard, under Accounts > Logs.

If the issue persists, contact Nylas Support.