A simple Gmail API client in Python for applications.
Currently Supported Behavior:
- Sending html messages
- Sending messages with attachments
- Sending messages with your Gmail account signature
- Retrieving messages with the full suite of Gmail's search capabilities
- Retrieving messages with attachments, and downloading attachments
- Modifying message labels (includes marking as read/unread, important/not important, starred/unstarred, trash/untrash, inbox/archive)
The only setup required is to download an OAuth 2.0 Client ID file from Google that will authorize your application.
This can be done at: https://console.developers.google.com/apis/credentials. For those who haven't created a credential for Google's API, after clicking the link above (and logging in to the appropriate account),
-
Select/create the project that this authentication is for (if creating a new project make sure to configure the OAuth consent screen; you only need to set an Application name).
-
Click on the "Dashboard" tab, then "Enable APIs and Services". Search for Gmail and enable.
-
Click on the Credentials tab, then "Create Credentials" > "OAuth client ID".
-
Select what kind of application this is for, and give it a memorable name.
-
Back on the credentials screen, click the download icon next to the credential you just created to download it as a JSON object.
-
Save this file as "client_secret.json" and place it in the root directory of your application. (The
Gmail
class takes in an argument for the name of this file if you choose to name it otherwise.)
The first time you create a new instance of the Gmail
class, a browser window
will open, and you'll be asked to give permissions to the application. This
will save an access token in a file named "gmail-token.json", and only needs to
occur once.
You are now good to go!
Note about authentication method: I have opted not to use a username-password authentication (through imap/smtp), since using Google's authorization is both significantly safer and avoids clashing with Google's many security measures.
Install using pip
(Python3).
pip3 install simplegmail
from simplegmail import Gmail
gmail = Gmail() # will open a browser window to ask you to log in and authenticate
params = {
"to": "[email protected]",
"sender": "[email protected]",
"subject": "My first email",
"msg_html": "<h1>Woah, my first email!</h1><br />This is an HTML email.",
"msg_plain": "Hi\nThis is a plain text email.",
"signature": True # use my account signature
}
message = gmail.send_message(**params) # equivalent to send_message(to="[email protected]", sender=...)
from simplegmail import Gmail
gmail = Gmail()
params = {
"to": "[email protected]",
"sender": "[email protected]",
"cc": ["[email protected]"],
"bcc": ["[email protected]", "[email protected]"],
"subject": "My first email",
"msg_html": "<h1>Woah, my first email!</h1><br />This is an HTML email.",
"msg_plain": "Hi\nThis is a plain text email.",
"attachments": ["path/to/something/cool.pdf", "path/to/image.jpg", "path/to/script.py"],
"signature": True # use my account signature
}
message = gmail.send_message(**params) # equivalent to send_message(to="[email protected]", sender=...)
It couldn't be easier!
from simplegmail import Gmail
gmail = Gmail()
# Unread messages in your inbox
messages = gmail.get_unread_inbox()
# Starred messages
messages = gmail.get_starred_messages()
# ...and many more easy to use functions can be found in gmail.py!
# Print them out!
for message in messages:
print("To: " + message.recipient)
print("From: " + message.sender)
print("Subject: " + message.subject)
print("Date: " + message.date)
print("Preview: " + message.snippet)
print("Message Body: " + message.plain) # or message.html
from simplegmail import Gmail
gmail = Gmail()
messages = gmail.get_unread_inbox()
message_to_read = messages[0]
message_to_read.mark_as_read()
# Oops, I want to mark as unread now
message_to_read.mark_as_unread()
message_to_star = messages[1]
message_to_star.star()
message_to_trash = messages[2]
message_to_trash.trash()
# ...and many more functions can be found in message.py!
from simplegmail import Gmail
gmail = Gmail()
# Get the label objects for your account. Each label has a specific ID that
# you need, not just the name!
labels = gmail.list_labels()
# To find a label by the name that you know (just an example):
finance_label = list(filter(lambda x: x.name == 'Finance', labels))[0]
messages = gmail.get_unread_inbox()
# We can add/remove a label
message = messages[0]
message.add_label(finance_label)
# We can "move" a message from one label to another
message.modify_labels(to_add=labels[10], to_remove=finance_label)
# ...check out the code in message.py for more!
from simplegmail import Gmail
gmail = Gmail()
messages = gmail.get_unread_inbox()
message = messages[0]
if message.attachments:
for attm in message.attachments:
print('File: ' + attm.filename)
attm.save() # downloads and saves each attachment under it's stored
# filename. You can download without saving with `attm.download()`
from simplegmail import Gmail
from simplegmail.query import construct_query
gmail = Gmail()
# Unread messages in inbox with label "Work"
messages = gmail.get_unread_inbox(label_ids=["Work"])
# For even more control use queries:
# Messages that are: newer than 2 days old, unread, labeled "Work" or both "Homework" and "CS"
query_params = {
"newer_than": (2, "day"),
"unread": True,
"labels":[["Work"], ["Homework", "CS"]]
}
messages = gmail.get_messages(query=construct_query(query_params))
# We could have also accomplished this with
# messages = gmail.get_unread_messages(query=construct_query(newer_than=(2, "day"), labels=[["Work"], ["Homework", "CS"]]))
# There are many, many different ways of achieving the same result with search.
from simplegmail import Gmail
from simplegmail.query import construct_query
gmail = Gmail()
# For even more control use queries:
# Messages that are either:
# newer than 2 days old, unread, labeled "Work" or both "Homework" and "CS"
# or
# newer than 1 month old, unread, labeled "Top Secret", but not starred.
# Construct our two queries separately
query_params_1 = {
"newer_than": (2, "day"),
"unread": True,
"labels":[["Work"], ["Homework", "CS"]]
}
query_params_2 = {
"newer_than": (1, "month"),
"unread": True,
"labels": ["Top Secret"],
"starred": True,
"exclude_starred": True
}
# construct_query() will create both query strings and "or" them together.
messages = gmail.get_messages(query=construct_query(query_params_1, query_params_2))
For more on what you can do with queries, read the docstring for construct_query()
in query.py
.
If there is functionality you'd like to see added, or any bugs in this project, please let me know by posting an issue or submitting a pull request!