Get a specific email by its ID with full content including body and attachments.
AI agents call get_email_by_id to retrieve information from Gmail MCP Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves and queries specific email data by ID. It has no side effects—it does not modify, delete, or execute operations. However, severity is elevated to 'medium' rather than 'low' because email content may contain sensitive personal information, financial data, authentication credentials, or private communications that could be misused if an AI agent retrieves emails without proper authorization checks.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'get_email_by_id' and description 'Get a specific email by its ID with full content including body and attachments' indicate retrieval of data without modification. The operation is explicitly read-only and returns email content.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Get a specific email by its ID with full content including body and attachments. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Gmail MCP Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Gmail MCP Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for get_email_by_id: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Gmail MCP Server. Nothing to install.
get_email_by_id is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the get_email_by_id rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for get_email_by_id. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
get_email_by_id is provided by the Gmail MCP Server MCP server (nisalgunawardhana/gmail-mcp-server). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Every MCP server has a record like this.
Type a name, get the same breakdown: verified identity, auth posture, risk grade, capabilities, recommended policy.
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