According to the Gmail API reference, Users.messages: list "[lists] the messages in the user's mailbox". In my observation, the messages are returned in descending order by data. Is this a correct assumption?
Basically I want to be able to process a user's inbox after a couple of days without reprocessing messages I have already processed. I would do that by stopping once I stumble upon an email I have seen before. Using the history doesn't work reliable, since it is documented that history might expire within a few hours, requiring a full new sync.