Python Quickstart

Complete the steps described in the rest of this page, and in about five minutes you'll have a simple Python command-line application that makes requests to the Gmail API.

Prerequisites

To run this quickstart, you'll need:

Python 2.6 or greater.
The pip package management tool.
Access to the internet and a web browser.
A Google account with Gmail enabled.

Step 1: Turn on the Gmail API

Use this wizard to create or select a project in the Google Developers Console and automatically turn on the API. Click Continue, then Go to credentials.
On the Add credentials to your project page, click the Cancel button.
At the top of the page, select the OAuth consent screen tab. Select an Email address, enter a Product name if not already set, and click the Save button.
Select the Credentials tab, click the Create credentials button and select OAuth client ID.
Select the application type Other, enter the name "Gmail API Quickstart", and click the Create button.
Click OK to dismiss the resulting dialog.
Click the file_download (Download JSON) button to the right of the client ID.
Move this file to your working directory and rename it client_secret.json.

Step 2: Install the Google Client Library

Run the following command to install the library using pip:

pip install --upgrade google-api-python-client

See the library's installation page for the alternative installation options.

Step 3: Set up the sample

Create a file named quickstart.py in your working directory and copy in the following code:


from __future__ import print_function
import httplib2
import os

from apiclient import discovery
from oauth2client import client
from oauth2client import tools
from oauth2client.file import Storage

try:
    import argparse
    flags = argparse.ArgumentParser(parents=[tools.argparser]).parse_args()
except ImportError:
    flags = None

# If modifying these scopes, delete your previously saved credentials
# at ~/.credentials/gmail-python-quickstart.json
SCOPES = 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly'
CLIENT_SECRET_FILE = 'client_secret.json'
APPLICATION_NAME = 'Gmail API Python Quickstart'


def get_credentials():
    """Gets valid user credentials from storage.

    If nothing has been stored, or if the stored credentials are invalid,
    the OAuth2 flow is completed to obtain the new credentials.

    Returns:
        Credentials, the obtained credential.
    """
    home_dir = os.path.expanduser('~')
    credential_dir = os.path.join(home_dir, '.credentials')
    if not os.path.exists(credential_dir):
        os.makedirs(credential_dir)
    credential_path = os.path.join(credential_dir,
                                   'gmail-python-quickstart.json')

    store = Storage(credential_path)
    credentials = store.get()
    if not credentials or credentials.invalid:
        flow = client.flow_from_clientsecrets(CLIENT_SECRET_FILE, SCOPES)
        flow.user_agent = APPLICATION_NAME
        if flags:
            credentials = tools.run_flow(flow, store, flags)
        else: # Needed only for compatibility with Python 2.6
            credentials = tools.run(flow, store)
        print('Storing credentials to ' + credential_path)
    return credentials

def main():
    """Shows basic usage of the Gmail API.

    Creates a Gmail API service object and outputs a list of label names
    of the user's Gmail account.
    """
    credentials = get_credentials()
    http = credentials.authorize(httplib2.Http())
    service = discovery.build('gmail', 'v1', http=http)

    results = service.users().labels().list(userId='me').execute()
    labels = results.get('labels', [])

    if not labels:
        print('No labels found.')
    else:
      print('Labels:')
      for label in labels:
        print(label['name'])


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Step 4: Run the sample

Run the sample using the following command:

python quickstart.py

The sample will attempt to open a new window or tab in your default browser. If this fails, copy the URL from the console and manually open it in your browser.
If you are not already logged into your Google account, you will be prompted to log in. If you are logged into multiple Google accounts, you will be asked to select one account to use for the authorization.
Click the Accept button.
The sample will proceed automatically, and you may close the window/tab.

Notes

Authorization information is stored on the file system, so subsequent executions will not prompt for authorization.
The authorization flow in this example is designed for a command-line application. For information on how to perform authorization in a web application, see Using OAuth 2.0 for Web Server Applications.

Troubleshooting

AttributeError: 'Module_six_moves_urllib_parse' object has no attribute 'urlparse'

This error can occur in Mac OSX where the default installation of the "six" module (a dependency of this library) is loaded before the one that pip installed. To fix the issue, add pip's install location to the PYTHONPATH system environment variable:

Determine pip's install location with the following command:
```
pip show six | grep "Location:" | cut -d " " -f2
```
Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc file, replacing <pip_install_path> with the value determined above:
```
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:<pip_install_path>
```
Reload your ~/.bashrc file in any open terminal windows using the following command:
```
source ~/.bashrc
```

TypeError: sequence item 0: expected str instance, bytes found

This error is due to a bug in httplib2, and upgrading to the latest version should resolve it:

pip install --upgrade httplib2