Django Gmail API backend

Email backend for Django which sends email via the Gmail API

The simple SMTP protocol is disabled by default for Gmail users, since this is included in the Less Secure Apps (LSA) category. The advice is to use SMTP+OAuth or to use the Gmail API directly. This package implements the second option as a Django email backend.

Installation

Install the package

pip install django-gmailapi-backend

Configuration

In your settings.py:

1. Add the module into the INSTALLED_APPS

   INSTALLED_APPS = [
       ...
       'gmailapi_backend',
       ...
   ]
   

2. Set the email backend

   EMAIL_BACKEND = 'gmailapi_backend.mail.GmailBackend'
   

3. Define the configuration parameters from your Gmail developer account (see next section)

   GMAIL_API_CLIENT_ID = 'client_id'
   GMAIL_API_CLIENT_SECRET = 'client_secret'
   GMAIL_API_REFRESH_TOKEN = 'refresh_token'
   

Configure the Gmail credentials

For using this package you need to obtain the OAuth credentials for a valid Gmail account.

• More information on the Gmail API: https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides/sending
• OAuth credentials for sending emails: https://github.com/google/gmail-oauth2-tools/wiki/OAuth2DotPyRunThrough

This package includes the script linked in the documentation above, which simplifies the setup of the API credentials. The following outlines the key steps:

1. Create a project in the Google developer console, https://console.cloud.google.com/
2. Enable the Gmail API
3. Create OAuth 2.0 credentials
4. Create a valid refresh_token using the helper script included in the package:

   gmail_oauth2 --generate_oauth2_token \
     --client_id="<client_id>" \
     --client_secret="<client_secret>" \
     --scope="https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.send"
   

[!NOTE] OOB flow is deprecated so --generate_oauth2_token can fail. To overcome this issue try instead --ugo2t option with the following syntax

gmail_oauth2 --ugo2t \
  --credentials_path="<credentials_relative_path>" # need to be download from gcp after creating an Oauth2 client