title: Sending automated emails from Firebase through Google Cloud Platform (no third parties)
body: <p>We've been doing some research for many hours already.</p>
  
  <p>The first solution that appears everywhere (other StackExchange questions too) is using third-party service <em>SendGrid.com</em> and sometimes in conjunction with Zapier, but that's not the approach we are wanting to implement.</p>
  
  <p>For sending without third-parties in the middle, the first solution that seemed viable was "Firebase Triggers", which was anounced on Google I/O 2014 but never came to life and <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/firebase-talk/GEsLy3S85QY/8htLM3QxFgAJ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">seemingly was merged into Google Cloud Functions</a> which is still in Alpha.</p>
  
  <p>I'm pretty sure I had seen the solution almost a year ago in a link on the FireBase blog, but <a href="https://firebase.googleblog.com/2015/10/email-notifications-with-firebase_90.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the only post that seems to have existed upon that matter is now empty</a>.</p>
  
  <p>We've never worked before with GCP, but our logic tells us this matter should be solved (inside Google) using with another GCP existing API, and the <a href="https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/php/mail/sending-receiving-with-mail-api" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Mail API</a> is apparently the correct one, but there seems not to be any way our Firebase Web App could make the request.</p>
  
  <p>Could anyone (preferably with GCP experience) please explain what's the situation here, and how does Google expects it's FireBase developers to send emails to their clients?</p>