CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsoauth-2.0google-apigoogle-oauth
Brandon Zacharie
Brandon Zacharie

Reputation: 2420

Using Google API's for one's own account without OAuth

Specifically, I'd like to use the Gmail API to access my own mail only. Is there a way to do this without OAuth and just an API key and/or client id and secret?

Using an API key like:

require('googleapis').gmail('v1').users.messages.list({ auth: '<KEY>', userId: '<EMAIL>') });

yields the following error:

{ errors: 
   [ { domain: 'global',
       reason: 'required',
       message: 'Login Required',
       locationType: 'header',
       location: 'Authorization' } ],
  code: 401,
  message: 'Login Required' }

I suppose that message means they want a valid OAuth "Authorization" header. I would do that but I suppose that's not possible without presenting a webpage.

Upvotes: 14

Views: 11070

Answers (2)

dablDev
dablDev

Reputation: 61

The question is rather old, but the problem is not. For now Google API has an option to create service accounts. I think it suits for everybody who wants "just connect application to its own google workspace" and not to do some actions on users behalf. Google documentation writes about it:

Typically, an application uses a service account when the application uses Google APIs to work with its own data rather than a user's data. For example, an application that uses Google Cloud Datastore for data persistence would use a service account to authenticate its calls to the Google Cloud Datastore API.

Here is the example in Java (there was no JS, but the meaning is clear):

import com.google.api.client.googleapis.auth.oauth2.GoogleCredential;
import com.google.api.services.sqladmin.SQLAdminScopes;
      
        
GoogleCredential credential = GoogleCredential.fromStream(new FileInputStream("MyProject-1234.json"))
            .createScoped(Collections.singleton(SQLAdminScopes.SQLSERVICE_ADMIN));
    
SQLAdmin sqladmin =
        new SQLAdmin.Builder(httpTransport, JSON_FACTORY, credential).build();
SQLAdmin.Instances.List instances =
        sqladmin.instances().list("exciting-example-123").execute();

Upvotes: 1

pinoyyid
pinoyyid

Reputation: 22286

The strict answer to "Is there a way to do this without OAuth and just an API key and/or client id and secret?" is no.

However, you can achieve what you are looking for using OAuth. You simply need to store a Refresh Token, which you can then use any time to request an Auth Token to access your gmail.

In order to get the refresh token, you can either write a simple web app to do a one time auth, or follow the steps here How do I authorise an app (web or installed) without user intervention? (canonical ?) which allows you to do the whole auth flow using the Oauth Playground.

Upvotes: 12

Related Questions