How to open Gmail Compose when a button is clicked in Android App?

Question

I am trying to open up Gmail Compose screen when a button is clicked in my Android App. Do I need some API key for this from Google? or what do I need to do in my button onClickListener?

Any kind of insight is much appreciated.

Answer 1

As JeffC pointed out, it is easy to essentially tell Android that you want to send something email-like and have Android give users a list of choices, which will probably include GMail. If you specifically want GMail, you have to be a bit cleverer. (Note that the correct MIME type is actually "text/plain", not "plain/text". Do to an implementation oddity, GMail seems to be the only activity which responds to the latter, but this isn't a behavior I would count on.)

The following App demonstrates the principle you can follow: actually examine all of the activities which say they can handle your SEND intent and see if any of them look like GMail.

package com.stackoverflow.beekeeper;  import android.app.Activity; import android.content.Intent; import android.content.pm.PackageManager; import android.content.pm.ResolveInfo; import android.os.Bundle;  import java.util.List;  public class StackOverflowTest extends Activity {     /** Called when the activity is first created. */     @Override     public void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState) {         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);         setContentView(R.layout.main);         final Intent intent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_SEND);         intent.setType("text/plain");         final PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();         final List<ResolveInfo> matches = pm.queryIntentActivities(intent, 0);         ResolveInfo best = null;         for (final ResolveInfo info : matches)            if (info.activityInfo.packageName.endsWith(".gm") ||         info.activityInfo.name.toLowerCase().contains("gmail")) best = info;         if (best != null)            intent.setClassName(best.activityInfo.packageName, best.activityInfo.name);         startActivity(intent);     }  }