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Nylas v2: Sent email messages not syncing

Sometimes, email messages that you send using Nylas might not sync with your provider properly. This might happen in one of the following situations:

Sent email messages stored locally

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

If you're using the desktop Microsoft Outlook client, you can configure your SMTP server to save copies of sent email messages to the Sent folder. For more information, see Micorosft's official Email sent using Outlook are not saved to the Sent Items folder guide.

For other email clients, you can check your local SMTP settings.

Sent folder not recognized

If your provider uses IMAP, Nylas might not recognize your 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.
  • Your folders are displayed in a language other than English.

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

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

  1. Make a GET /folders request and verify the name of the folder.

    • 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 folder with the correct name.

    curl --request PUT \
      --url https://api.nylas.com/folders/<FOLDER_ID> \
      --header 'Accept: application/json, application/gzip' \
      --header 'Authorization: Bearer <NYLAS_ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
      --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
      --data '{
        "display_name": "Sent",
        "name": "sent"
      }'

  3. Make another GET /folders request to check the folder's name again. If the update was processed correctly, the folder's name should now be "sent".

Folder name versus display name

As you're setting your Sent folder, keep in mind the distinction between folder names and display names:

  • Folder names are 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 names are the localized folder names. These match the names presented in your email clients. If you're displaying folders in your application, be sure to use the display_name value instead of name.

Delayed sync process

In some cases, there might be a delay in the sync process, or another issue (for example, throttling by the email server) that prevents Nylas from syncing email messages. To fix the issue, follow these steps:

  1. Review Nylas' throttling documentation. Note that if your account is being throttled, Nylas won't be able to sync email messages until the throttling window expires.
  2. Check your account's sync status in the Nylas Dashboard, under Accounts > Logs.

If this doesn't fix the issue, contact Nylas Support for further troubleshooting.