Can XOAUTH2 be used with imaplib for Google Workspace Gmail access without enabling IMAP?

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1

I’m trying to build something that grabs emails from Gmail and puts them in a Django system. The problem is, the client won’t turn on IMAP for their Google Workspace.

When I run my code, I get this error: [ALERT] IMAP access is disabled for your domain. Please contact your domain administrator for questions about this feature. (Failure)

I’ve looked all over the Google Workspace settings but can’t find a way to make this work. Someone told me that since XOAUTH2 is just for logging in, I’m getting stopped at the domain level and it’s never going to work.

Is there any way around this? Here’s a simple version of what I’m trying:

import imaplib
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow

def get_auth():
    SCOPES = ['https://mail.google.com/']
    flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file('secret.json', SCOPES)
    creds = flow.run_local_server(port=0)
    return creds

def connect_gmail(email):
    creds = get_auth()
    auth_string = f'user={email}\1auth=Bearer {creds.token}\1\1'
    imap = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
    imap.authenticate('XOAUTH2', lambda x: auth_string)
    return imap

try:
    imap = connect_gmail('[email protected]')
    print('Connected!')
    imap.select('INBOX')
    typ, msgs = imap.search(None, 'ALL')
    print(f'Found {len(msgs[0].split())} messages')
    imap.logout()
except Exception as e:
    print(f'Error: {e}')

Any ideas?

2

I’ve dealt with a similar situation before, and unfortunately, XOAUTH2 won’t bypass the IMAP restriction. It’s mainly for authentication, not access control.

Instead, you might want to look into using the Gmail API. It doesn’t require IMAP to be enabled and provides more granular control. You’ll need to adjust your code to use the googleapiclient library instead of imaplib.

Here’s a rough idea of how you’d start:

from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow

SCOPES = ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly']

flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file('credentials.json', SCOPES)
creds = flow.run_local_server(port=0)

service = build('gmail', 'v1', credentials=creds)
results = service.users().messages().list(userId='me').execute()
messages = results.get('messages', [])

This approach should work even with IMAP disabled. You’ll need to modify your Django system to work with the Gmail API’s message format, but it’s doable. Good luck with your project!

3

I’ve encountered this issue before and can confirm that XOAUTH2 does not bypass the restrictions imposed by disabled IMAP. An alternative is to develop a Google Workspace Add-on that accesses Gmail data without relying on IMAP. By creating an add-on—either using Google Apps Script or a dedicated server component—you can fetch the emails with Gmail’s services and then transfer the data to your Django system using REST API calls. Although this solution demands additional setup and some architectural changes, it adheres to the client’s security settings and offers a viable workaround.

4

hey tom, have u tried using the gmail api? it’s a bit different from imap but might work for ur situation. u don’t need imap enabled for it. check out the google.auth and googleapiclient libraries. they’ve got some good docs to get u started. good luck with ur project!