How to get the client's time in a gmail add-on?

Question

I would like to know the timezone of the user who runs the gmail add-on.

Trying the following code did not comply to the client's time zone :

var formattedDate = Utilities.formatDate(new Date(), "GMT", "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'");
Logger.log(formattedDate);

I basically want to filter my response and just show the upcoming events to the user.

Answer 1

There's the official documented way to retrieve timezone info in Gmail add-ons. Add the following scope to your manifest file:

 "oauthScopes":["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/script.locale", ....]

Set the 'gmail.userLocaleFromApp' property to 'true':

 "gmail": {"useLocaleFromApp": true}

Set the "onTriggerFunction" property to whatever function you are using to start up the add-on. The code below displays the card showing timezone details for the user running the add-on.

function loadAddon(e){

var accessToken = e.messageMetadata.accessToken;
GmailApp.setCurrentMessageAccessToken(accessToken);

var userLocale = e.userLocale;
var offset = e.userTimezone.offSet;
var timezoneId = e.userTimezone.id;

var message ="User locale: " + userLocale + 
             "\nUTC offset: " + offset +  
             " \nTimezone Id: " + timezoneId;

var card = CardService.newCardBuilder()
                       .setHeader(CardService.newCardHeader()
                                      .setTitle("User timezone info"))
                       .addSection(CardService.newCardSection()
                                       .setHeader(Session.getActiveUser().getEmail())
                                       .addWidget(CardService.newTextParagraph()
                                       .setText(message)))
                       .build();

return [card];

}

UPDATE There seems to be the error in the documentation that some of the editors pointed out:

https://developers.google.com/gmail/add-ons/how-tos/access-user-locale

The UTC offset is supposed to be e.userTimezone.offset, but is actually e.userTimezone.offSet.