gmailr

Exposing the Gmail API from R.

Installation

Get the released version from CRAN:

install.packages("gmailr")

Or the development version from github with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("jimhester/gmailr")

Features

• retrieve data from your email
  • drafts: my_drafts = drafts()
  • history: my_history = history(start_num)
  • labels: my_labels = labels()
  • messages: my_messages = messages("search query")
  • threads: my_threads = threads("search query")
• Create and send emails and drafts: see sending_messages vignette
• manage email labels programmatically: modify_thread(thread_id, add_labels=c("label_1"), remove_labels=c("label_2"))
• put things in the gmail trash
  • messages: trash_message(message_id)
  • threads: trash_thread(thread_id)
• take things out of the gmail trash
  • messages: untrash_message(message_id)
  • threads: untrash_thread(thread_id)
• delete directly without using the trash
  • messages: delete_message(message_id)
  • threads: delete_thread(thread_id)

Setup

By default gmailr will use a global project. However if you are going to be a heavy user and will do a lot of queries please setup your own project with the steps below. This often works best via Google Chrome.

• Pick a project name; referred to as PROJ-NAME from now on.

• Register a new project at https://console.developers.google.com/project.

• From Overview screen, look at Google Apps APIs and select the Gmail API. Enable it.

• Click "Go to Credentials" or navigate directly to Credentials.

• You want a get a client ID and will need to "Configure consent screen".

  • The email should be pre-filled. Enter PROJ-NAME as Product name. Other fields can be left blank.

• Returning to the "client id" process:

  • Application Type: "Other"
  • Enter PROJ-NAME again as the name.
  • Click "Create"

• Client id and secret will appear in a pop-up which you can dismiss via "OK". Instead use download icon at far right of your project's listing to download a JSON file with all of this info. Move to an appropriate location and consider renaming as PROJ-NAME.json.

• Use the downloaded JSON file as input to use_secret_file(), prior to other gmailr calls.

  ``` r
  use_secret_file('PROJ-NAME.json')
  ```
  

Future Work

• More unit tests and better coverage
• More (complicated) examples
• Email statistics
• Programmatic emailing
• Returning data frames in addition to native Gmail API objects which are usually a nested list.
• Support all the formats of users.messages:get

Examples

• Send Email with R - Jenny Bryan (@jennybc)
• Gmail Stats - Ahmad Al-Kashef (@alkashef)