I want to create an email application using Ruby on Rails that works with Gmail. I’m particularly focused on getting the email sending functionality to work properly.
I’ve been thinking about this project for a while but I’m not sure where to start. Should I use specific gems for Gmail integration? What’s the best approach for handling authentication with Google’s servers?
The main features I need are:
- Connecting to Gmail accounts
- Sending emails through Gmail’s SMTP
- Maybe reading emails later
I’m pretty new to working with external email services in Rails, so any guidance on the basic setup would be really helpful. Are there any good tutorials or documentation you’d recommend for this kind of project?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Gmail SMTP with ActionMailer is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. I got stuck on 2FA at first - you’ll need to either enable less secure app access or create an app-specific password in your Google Account settings. Set delivery_method to :smtp, use ‘smtp.gmail.com’ as the address, port 587, and turn on enable_starttls_auto. Plain authentication works great. Skip the fancy gems for now - Rails handles Gmail sending just fine out of the box. Only mess with OAuth if you’re planning to read emails too. Pro tip: test with a throwaway Gmail account, not your main one.
Built something similar last year - OAuth2 with Gmail was a massive pain at first. Token refresh especially tripped me up. I went with the gmail gem plus omniauth-google-oauth2 for auth, which helped a lot. Gmail’s rate limiting blindsided me, so set up queuing right away even for testing. ActionMailer handles SMTP sending fine once you’ve got credentials working. Watch your scope permissions in Google Cloud Console - sending and reading emails need different scopes. Google’s Ruby client docs aren’t bad once you push through the initial setup nightmare.
Start with the mail gem and Gmail’s SMTP settings - skip OAuth for now. Much easier to get running. You’ll need a Gmail app password (not your regular one) and set up action_mailer. Get emails sending first, then tackle OAuth for reading emails.