Gmail Drafter: Create Mail Merge Drafts

Simple tool to take a CSV and a template and create drafts in your Gmail. Useful for sending emails to large-ish numbers of people where you want to slightly customize the emails for each user. You can quickly run through drafts, customize it, and send.

Installation

pip install -U gmail-draft-creator

Usage

Usage: gmail-draft-creator [OPTIONS]

Options:
  --csv PATH       Path to the CSV file.  [required]
  --template PATH  Path to the template file.  [required]
  --subject TEXT   Subject for the email drafts.
  --dry-run        Run script without creating drafts.
  --help           Show this message and exit.

You can also import the create_draft function and use it in your own scripts.

CSV Files

Must contain an email column (case insensitive).

Each column in the CSV is passed as a parameter to the provided template. The column name is stripped of whitespace, lowercased, and stripped all non-alpha characters. For example, a column named First Name would be passed as $firstname in the template.

Template Files

You can include subject line and variables in the template file:

Subject: Hello $NAME

Hi, here's another ${REASON} why I'm emailing you.

CSV Files

A CSV file that would work with this template might be something like this:

Email,Name,Reason,OtherColumn,...
joe@test.com,Joe,reminder,...
jeff@email.com,Jeff,sales pitch,...

Setup

You need to create a "OAuth 2.0 Client IDs" which has to be done with a Google Workspace (gsuite). This will not work on a personal gmail account (unless you create a app on a workspace and add your personal account as a test account).

Generating a Gmail API Token

1. Navigate to the Google Cloud Console. https://console.developers.google.com/
2. Create a new project or select an existing one.
3. Go to "APIs & Services" -> "Library" and enable the Gmail API.
4. Navigate to "APIs & Services" -> "Credentials".
5. Click "Create Credentials" -> "OAuth client ID".
6. Select "Desktop app" as the application type, then click "Create".
7. Download the JSON file, rename it to credentials.json, and place it in the root of this project.
8. Run the script and oauth into your account

If you want to edit scopes on an existing application, you can:

1. OAuth Consent Screen
2. Edit
3. Continue to step 2
4. Add or remove scopes
5. Add scopes and save

Credential Scopes Needed

Two main scopes are required for this:

• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.compose
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly

Some other scopes I'd add so you can reuse the credentials in other projects, like gmailctl or calendar scripts:

• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.event
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.labels
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.settings.basic

TODO

• add credentials as a command line argument
• add serialized token as a CLI argument