Check unread count of Gmail messages with Python

Question

How can I check the number of unread Gmail message in my inbox with a short Python script? Bonus points for retrieving the password from a file.

score 55 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 21 '10 at 06:30

55

import imaplib
obj = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com','993')
obj.login('username','password')
obj.select()
obj.search(None,'UnSeen')

answered Oct 21 '10 at 06:30

Avadhesh

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I really like this solution. Generally clean with only one import. To get the number you'd just: len(obj.search(None, 'UnSeen')[1][0].split()) – Steven Hepting Oct 31 '10 at 03:27
can I get message bodies and subjects with this solution? – DataGreed Jan 07 '13 at 21:41
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@DataGreed: With the search, you get only the mail id's, but you can then use that with "obj.fetch(..." to get the mails you want. See this link for example of how to do that: http://yuji.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/python-imaplib-imap-example-with-gmail/ – Samuel Lampa Feb 09 '13 at 16:59
Using this I got notification that someone just used my password to try to log in using unsecure app, with link to this doc: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255?p=lsa_blocked&hl=en&visit_id=636846249310990834-3121226013&rd=1 – Bunyk Feb 01 '19 at 13:37
For those who are curious about connecting to gmail using imaplib, google will periodically disable 3rd party access and you will have to manually enable it. Better to create an app and use the gmail api instead. – nurettin Nov 19 '20 at 09:06
Since June 2022 IMAP access no longer works. – Ruslan Jun 12 '22 at 17:43

score 25 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 01 '13 at 19:39

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I advise you to use Gmail atom feed

It is as simple as this:

import urllib

url = 'https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/'
opener = urllib.FancyURLopener()
f = opener.open(url)
feed = f.read()

You can then use the feed parse function in this nice article: Check Gmail the pythonic way

edited Jul 01 '13 at 19:39

Olli

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answered Jun 04 '09 at 23:22

Nadia Alramli

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What's so bad about IMAP? Note that this snippet is not complete, despite the "simple as this". – Matthew Flaschen Jun 05 '09 at 02:41
Also note that this solution will prompt the user for username, password on the TTY. However, you can subclass the opener to handle this. – Matthew Flaschen Jun 05 '09 at 03:08
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It always returns unauthorized for me File "/opt/python2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 379, in http_error_default raise IOError, ('http error', errcode, errmsg, headers) IOError: ('http error', 401, 'Unauthorized', ) – gennad May 01 '11 at 07:55

score 25 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 05 '09 at 03:05

25

Well, I'm going to go ahead and spell out an imaplib solution as Cletus suggested. I don't see why people feel the need to use gmail.py or Atom for this. This kind of thing is what IMAP was designed for. Gmail.py is particularly egregious as it actually parses Gmail's HTML. That may be necessary for some things, but not to get a message count!

import imaplib, re
conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("imap.gmail.com", 993)
conn.login(username, password)
unreadCount = re.search("UNSEEN (\d+)", conn.status("INBOX", "(UNSEEN)")[1][0]).group(1)

Pre-compiling the regex may improve performance slightly.

answered Jun 05 '09 at 03:05

Matthew Flaschen

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While I happen to agree IMAP is the way to go here, there are some portability issues that could occur. Since the other methods are using HTTP connections, they could conceivably work when IMAP wouldn't (in restrictive environments like Google App Engine or on networks where non-HTTP traffic is restricted). – Tom Jun 06 '09 at 23:23
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Tom, that's true. But the OP didn't say they were dealing with those limitations, so we should not invent them prematurely. – Matthew Flaschen Jun 08 '09 at 01:47

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 14 '11 at 00:28

For a complete implementation of reading the value from the atom feed:

import urllib2
import base64
from xml.dom.minidom import parse

def gmail_unread_count(user, password):
    """
        Takes a Gmail user name and password and returns the unread
        messages count as an integer.
    """
    # Build the authentication string
    b64auth = base64.encodestring("%s:%s" % (user, password))
    auth = "Basic " + b64auth

    # Build the request
    req = urllib2.Request("https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/")
    req.add_header("Authorization", auth)
    handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)

    # Build an XML dom tree of the feed
    dom = parse(handle)
    handle.close()

    # Get the "fullcount" xml object
    count_obj = dom.getElementsByTagName("fullcount")[0]
    # get its text and convert it to an integer
    return int(count_obj.firstChild.wholeText)

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 04 '09 at 23:12

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Well it isn't a code snippet but I imagine using imaplib and the Gmail IMAP instructions get you most of the way there.

answered Jun 04 '09 at 23:12

cletus

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 04 '09 at 23:30

Once you are logged in (do this manually or with gmail.py) you should use the feed.

It is located here: http://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

It is the way Google does it. Here is a link to their js chrome extension: http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions/samples/gmail.zip

You will then be able to parse xml that looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<feed version="0.3" xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#">
<title>Gmail - Inbox for yourmail@gmail.com</title>
<tagline>New messages in your Gmail Inbox</tagline>
<fullcount>142</fullcount>

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 01 '22 at 17:16

I didn't like the existing solutions so I decided to make a sister library for my email sender called Red Box.

It has a pre-configured gmail instance:

from redbox import gmail

# Configure Gmail
gmail.username = "example@gmail.com"
gmail.password = "<PASSWORD>"

# Select inbox folder
inbox = gmail.inbox

# Get unread emails
msgs_unread = inbox.search(seen=False)

# Print unread count
print(len(msgs_unread))

Red Box fetches the email contents only when needed. The above does not do that as we didn't access the contents of these messages. You can also easily access various parts of the messages if you need.

I also wrote how to configure Gmail's app password here:

To install:

pip install redbox

Links:

ahawker · Answer 8 · 2009-06-04T23:17:41.833

-1

Use Gmail.py

file = open("filename","r")
usr = file.readline()
pwd = file.readline()
gmail = GmailClient()
gmail.login(usr, pwd)
unreadMail = gmail.get_inbox_conversations(is_unread=True)
print unreadMail

Gets login information from a text file assuming the login name and password are on separate lines.

edited Jun 04 '09 at 23:17

answered Jun 04 '09 at 23:12

ahawker

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I checked the module source, what it does it open gmail in html mode and parse the page. This is bad! http://www.holovaty.com/code/gmail.py – Nadia Alramli Jun 04 '09 at 23:20
readline includes a trailing newline, which you don't want here. – Matthew Flaschen Jun 04 '09 at 23:24
1

Nadia is right. This will waste significant time and bandwidth. – Matthew Flaschen Jun 05 '09 at 03:05
That gmail.py (fortunately) do not exist anymore. – Olli Jul 01 '13 at 19:40

Check unread count of Gmail messages with Python

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