I need help with automating Gmail chat controls based on where I’m working. At my office, I rely on Gmail’s chat feature because it’s secure and keeps conversation history without needing extra software. At home, I prefer using different chat clients like Pidgin.
The problem is that when I access Gmail from home, I need to manually disable chat to prevent messages from going to the wrong place. When I’m at the office, I have to manually enable it again. This gets annoying having to remember to switch it every time.
I’m looking for a userscript solution that can automatically control the chat status depending on which computer I’m using. The tricky part is that Gmail doesn’t use regular HTML links for these controls.
How can I programmatically trigger these pseudo-links using JavaScript? I suspect the data values like “enable”, “disable”, and “aim” correspond to specific functions. Is there a way to call these actions directly?
Are there other approaches to control Gmail chat programmatically?
Gmail loads chat controls dynamically, so timing matters. I got it working by using setInterval to poll for elements, then dispatching custom events instead of basic clicks. For location detection, check navigator.connection properties or use a simple server-side script that returns your IP range. My best approach was a wrapper function with multiple selectors - Gmail changes class names sometimes. Check both footer spans and data-action attributes as backups. Add a small delay after page load since Gmail’s interface takes time to fully load chat components. Run your userscript on document-idle so everything’s loaded before you try modifying chat settings.
I’ve encountered this Gmail automation issue before. You have the right elements, but it’s better to simulate clicks rather than call functions directly. For the footer elements, use document.getElementById('chat-off').click() or document.getElementById('chat-on').click() to toggle the chat status. This method is more reliable than interacting with dropdown items. To detect your location, consider checking your local IP range or using an environment variable. I personally utilize window.location.hostname combined with localStorage for saving location preferences, which works well for switching between work and home. Just a note, Gmail loads elements asynchronously, so ensure your script waits for the DOM elements to exist before interacting with them. I typically use MutationObserver to observe when the chat controls appear before executing my code.
try using Tampermonkey or Greasemonkey for userscripts. You can check your location by looking at your IP or set a localStorage flag. Then just trigger clicks on those spans with something like document.querySelector('[data-action="disable"]').click() after the page is fully loaded.