Google's official developer blog for Google Apps, announcing APIs and features for Gmail, Drive, and Apps Script.
HN links it for primary announcements such as the Gmail API and Drive file picker, and for Apps Script tutorials like Gmail Snooze.
As I've mentioned on HN before, I'd really like to see The Next Gmail. (I thought it would maybe occur as Google opened up on Gmail a bit this last June http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2014/06/introducing-new-gmail-api.html)
With time my experience with Gmail keeps degrading and I'm to the point where I notice myself browsing around the web for other options like FastMail and such. I haven't seen anything overwhelmingly better, at least not in the way that Gmail was when it first appeared.
The original Gmail, when it came out and you had to be invited in and such, was mind-blowing better than the competition. I've not seen any update to any Google service since that so clearly was above the competition. Recall that it was so good people thought it was one of their April Fool's Day hoaxes.
Since then, if anything, I've seen Gmail degrade with time. I get more spam now than ever. (And the spam comes in different forms such as via Gmail Chat/Hangouts), the interface is laggy to me on a MacBook Pro with 20mbit↓ connection, and new innovations like the Google Voice merging are always buggier than what they called "Beta" in Gmail circa 2005->2009.
From the original announcement [1]:
"Today, we are introducing schemas in emails to make messages more interactive and allow developers to deliver a slice of their apps to users’ inboxes.
Schemas in emails can be used to represent various types of entities and actions. Email clients that understand schemas, such as Gmail, can render entities and actions defined in the messages with a consistent user interface."
I haven't looked into this in any depth but it doesn't necessarily seem Gmail specific (a good thing) but it does mean even more clicky buttons in an interface where I can't easily see what those buttons actually do (less good from a security/phishing standpoint).
[1] http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/introducing-actions-in-inbox-powered-by.html
Two key bits from the first two paragraphs of the article:
"make it easier for other Internet applications to use information in your email"
"It will replace IMAP"
First one seems par for the course, the second one doesn't seem to be reflected in the Google blog post [1]. Certainly for the moment, thankfully, it looks like IMAP is staying:
"The Gmail API should not be used to replace IMAP for full-fledged email client access" [2]
[1] http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2014/06/introducing-new-gmail-api.html
[2] https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/
Ok, if you are going to do it, here is the bunch of links that got there part of the way and need someone to take further:
http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2011/11/parsing-exported-mailboxes-using-python.html
https://docs.python.org/3/library/mailbox.html?highlight=mailbox#module-mailbox
https://gist.github.com/ptwobrussell/8791064
http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2013/12/19/searching-my-email/
http://batleth.sapienti-sat.org/projects/mb2md/ (if going from mbox to mailbox is easier)
It's not exactly the same as the function you define, but using Google Apps Script you can get a Snooze function pretty easily: http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2011/07/gmail-snooze-with-apps-script.html
With less than an hour of work, I bet you can modify the script to make exactly what you want. Actually, it seems that most of Boomerang's functionalities could be substituted for free with a couple of Google Apps Scripts.
The Gmail Snooze Google Apps Script is another semi-solution; rather than BCC, it will make a message reappear in your inbox in X days. The difference is that you add a label to any sent mail that you want to follow-up on.
Here's the tutorial: http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2011/07/gmail-snooze-with-apps-script.html