User API response does not include email

nbpenn

Per the User API docs: "Array of additional information to include on the user record. “locale”, “avatar_url”, “permissions”, “email”, and “effective_locale” will always be returned"

However, the response does not include the email field, even with users that have email addresses in their Account settings.

```
{
"id": [user id],
"name": "[fname lname]",
"created_at": "[created at]",
"sortable_name": "[lname, fname]",
"short_name": "[fname lname]",
"avatar_url": "[avatar url]",
"last_name": "[lname]",
"first_name": "[fname]",
"locale": null,
"effective_locale": "en",
"permissions": {
"can_update_name": false,
"can_update_avatar": true,
"limit_parent_app_web_access": false
}
```

Is there a trick to getting the email field returned with the User API request? I've tried adding ?include[]=email as well, but no luck.

 

Chris

Hi @nbpenn,

From what I can see in my quick testing, the email field does show up if the user making the API call is an admin.  If the user is not an admin, the email doesn't show.  I'm not sure if this is a bug, or if it's intended behavior and should be documented in a better way though.

May I ask about your use case for this?  Are you trying to do an API lookup form an external tool or something like thta, or are you trying to do customizations within Canvas itself?  There should be other ways to get a user's email address, like the ENV.USER_EMAIL variable in the UI or through LTI launch data, but I know there are scenarios where neither of those may be acceptable.  With the API, you could also use Communication Channels endpoint too https://canvas.umd.umich.edu/api/v1/users/:user_id/communication_channels .  Things to at least consider...

-Chris