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Nylas Quickstart

This guide introduces the Nylas Dashboard, shows you how to connect an account for demonstration purposes, and gives you some options for trying out the Nylas APIs using that connected demo account.

Before you start

If you're a first-time user, sign up for a Nylas account first!

When you sign up, Nylas generates a default Quickstart Nylas application for you to test with. Nylas applications are a container for specific settings, configuration, and connected user accounts, and the Quickstart one is only for exploring.

Create a new application when you're done exploring and ready to start developing your project.

Step 1: Connect an email account

Connect an email account to your Nylas Quickstart application. You can choose to connect either a Nylas test email account or your own email account.

If you use your own email account Nylas requests access to all of its available scopes, and this allows you to try all of the Nylas APIs. If you use the Nylas test email account, you can try the read-only API endpoints only.

Connect an email account

Learn more about authentication scopes.

Authentication scopes Nylas test email account Your email account
email.modify X
email.read_only X X
email.metadata X
email.drafts X
email.send X
email.folders_and_labels X
calendar X
calendar.read_only X X
contacts X
contacts.read_only X X
room_resources.read_only X X

Connect a Nylas test email account

If you use a test email account, you can try Nylas's read functionality only.

  1. Log in to Nylas Dashboard.
  2. On the Quickstart page, click Use a Nylas test account.
    Nylas generates a test email account automatically.
  3. Click Connect.

Connect your own email account

If you use your own email account, you can test Nylas' full set of features. Your email service provider will ask you to grant Nylas access to the account's calendars, contacts, and email messages.

  1. Log in to Nylas Dashboard.
  2. On the Quickstart page, click Use my own account.
  3. Enter your email address.
  4. On the screen from your email provider, review the permissions Nylas is requesting.
  5. Click Next.

Step 2: Run the sample API request

After you connect an email account, Nylas shows you the Client ID and Client Secret for the Quickstart application, and displays an access token.

Save the access token in a safe place, because you cannot view it again after you leave the page. You can generate a new access token later if needed.

The access token is specific to the email account that you just connected with, and the permissions ("scopes") that you agreed to when you connected.

You can use the access token in the on-screen Postman tool in the Dashboard to run a sample API request (such as GET /account) that returns details about the connected account. You can use either cURL or the Nylas CLI with Postman, or you can copy and paste the cURL command into your terminal.

Client ID, client secret, and access token. Run the sample API request.

When you click Run on the Postman tool, Nylas returns a JSON payload containing information about the email account you connected.

What's Next?