Sending emails from a desktop app using Gmail account: How to do it?

Other Questions Gmail
1

Hey everyone,

I’m working on a cool desktop app for social media stuff like Twitter and Facebook. I hit a snag with Google Buzz though. They don’t have a full API yet, but I found out you can post to Buzz by sending an email to [email protected].

Here’s my problem: I can’t figure out how to send that email from my app using my Gmail account. Is there some Google service or API I can use for this? I’ve been searching for hours and I’m totally stuck.

Any help would be awesome! Thanks in advance.

def send_email_to_buzz(subject, body):
    # Need help implementing this function
    # to send email using Gmail credentials
    pass

# Example usage
def send_post():
    send_email_to_buzz('My Buzz post', 'Check out this cool app I\'m making!')

Let me know if you need more info about what I’ve tried so far. Cheers!

2

For sending emails via Gmail in a desktop app, you might want to consider using OAuth 2.0 instead of hardcoding credentials. This approach is more secure and aligns with Google’s best practices. You’d need to set up a project in the Google Cloud Console, enable the Gmail API, and obtain the necessary credentials. Then, you can use a library like ‘google-auth’ and ‘google-auth-oauthlib’ to handle the authentication flow. This method is a bit more complex to set up initially, but it provides better security and user experience in the long run. It also avoids potential issues with Gmail’s security settings that might block less secure apps.

3

hey man, i’ve done somethin similar before. you could try usin the ‘yagmail’ library. it’s super easy to use and handles all the gmail stuff for ya. just pip install yagmail, set up ur credentials, and you’re good to go. way simpler than dealing with smtplib directly. lemme know if u want more details!

4

I’ve actually tackled a similar issue in one of my projects. For sending emails through Gmail from a desktop app, I found that using the smtplib library in Python works well. Here’s a basic example of how you could implement it:

import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

def send_email_to_buzz(subject, body):
    sender = '[email protected]'
    password = 'your_app_password'  # Not your regular Gmail password!
    recipient = '[email protected]'

    msg = MIMEText(body)
    msg['Subject'] = subject
    msg['From'] = sender
    msg['To'] = recipient

    server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com', 587)
    server.starttls()
    server.login(sender, password)
    server.send_message(msg)
    server.quit()

# Example usage
send_email_to_buzz('My Buzz post', 'Check out this cool app I\'m making!')

One crucial thing to note: You’ll need to use an ‘App Password’ instead of your regular Gmail password. You can generate this in your Google Account settings. Also, make sure to enable ‘Less secure app access’ in your Gmail settings.

Hope this helps you get started! Let me know if you run into any issues implementing it.