OAuth Desktop and Web Application Flows

This guide walks you through how to set up OAuth 2.0 for API access using your own credentials and either the desktop flow or the web flow. These steps only need to be done once, unless you revoke, delete, or need to change the allowed scopes for your OAuth 2.0 credentials.

Create OAuth 2.0 credentials

  1. Follow the steps to configure a Google API Console project for the Google Ads API.

  2. Download the client's JSON file by first clicking its Download OAuth client icon and then the DOWNLOAD JSON button on the following screen.

    Save the file to your home directory so that you now have the local file ~/client_secret_XXX.apps.googleusercontent.com.json (where XXX will be values specific to your project). We'll use this file in the next step to run the code example.

Set up the client library

  1. In a terminal, run the generate_user_credentialscode example. Use command line flags to pass it the JSON file you downloaded in the previous step.

    generate_user_credentials.py \
    --client_secrets_path=${HOME}/client_secret_XXX.apps.googleusercontent.com.json

  2. This code example prompts you to visit a URL where you must authorize the app to access your Google Ads account on your behalf.

    Paste this URL in your browser:
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?access_type=offline&client_id=****...

    Navigate to the URL in a private browser session or an incognito window. Sign in with the Google Account you use to access Google Ads. Usually, this is a login email to a Google Ads manager account that contains all the accounts you need to manage under its account hierarchy. Click Continue on the OAuth 2.0 consent screen.

    OAuth 2.0 consent screen

    You'll be taken to a page with a message indicating that the authorization succeeded.

    Your refresh token has been fetched. Check the console output for further instructions.

  3. Return to the console where you ran the code example.You'll see that the code example has completed and is displaying your refresh token and some instructions, followed by the instructions you'll need to follow to configure the client library:

    Your refresh token is: 1/Yw.........................................
Add your refresh token to your client library configuration as described here:
https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/client-libs/python/configuration