Intro
In this blog post, I will show you how to create gmail API completely for free using your free google account. What is Gmail API? Gmail API is an application programming interface which connects your free gmail email address with Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. In simple words, gmail API is needed so you can receive and auto-reply to your email messages when using your contact form on your website. As promised, everything is going to be free of charge, you only need your free google account and free gmail email address ready to go! Let’s get started.
Create New Project
Come to google.com and search for ”google cloud console.” Click on the 1st popped up search result below ads containing this URL: console.cloud.google.com. Make sure you’re already signed in to your free google account. If you haven’t used google cloud platform before, you’ll be asked to select your country and agree to the Google Cloud Platform Terms of Service, and the terms of service of any applicable services and APIs. Agreeing to receive email notifications from Google Cloud and Google Cloud Partners is not obligated, so don’t check that box. Unless you want to receive undesired promotional emails regularly! In the next step, on the top of the screen next to ”Google Cloud” icon, click on ”Select a project.” Then ”New Project.” Name your Project, I’m going to add a random project name ”Random Name.” As for Location, you can leave it as it is – ”No organisation.” Click on ”Create.” You’ve successfully created a new project.
Create Gmail API
Select your newly created project however you named it (in my case – ”Random Name”) by clicking on ”Select Project.” Inside of your project, on the navigation menu to the left, click on ”APIs & Services.” Additionally, you need to search for ”gmail API.” Press enter. 2 results are going to pop up: ”Gmail API” and ”Gmail Postmaster Tools API.” Choose the 1st one – ”Gmail API.” Later on, ”Enable” it. Click on ”Create Credentials” to the top right hand-side.
1st step – select ”user data” for gmail API type (unless you have your own application). But if you don’t, you’re an individual Google user with your free gmail email address, select ”User data.”
2nd step – on ”0Auth Consent Screen”, randomly name your app (”RANDOM APP NAME”). For ”User support email”, select your free gmail email address, it is automatically ready to select because you are logged in to Google Cloud Platform with it. Skip ”App logo” if you don’t have one, it is not necessary. For ”Developer Contact Information”, provide 1 or more of your free gmail email addresses so Google can later notify you about any changes to your project. Afterwards, click on ”Save and Continue.”
3rd step – skip scopes, it is an optional step for expressing the permissions you request users to authorise for your app and allow your project to access specific types of private user data from their Google Account. ”Save and Continue.”
4th step – on ”0Auth Client ID” step, choose application type as ”Web application.” You can leave the default app name as it is, ”Web client 1.” Skip ”Authorized JavaScript origins” and click on ”Add URL” right under ”Authorized redirect URLs”. We are going to connect our free gmail email address to free Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (WP Mail SMTP) using our wordpress website & contact form. But more on that in the next blog post, so stay tuned. Just add this URL for ”Authorized Redirect URIs”: https://connect.wpmailsmtp.com/google/
and click on ”Create.”
5th step – now you can download your credentials and save them to the safe place – your client ID and client secret. They are necessary for connecting our free gmail email address and free WP Mail SMTP. So don’t lose them! Finally, we only have 1 more quick phase left to do for our new Gmail API to function properly.
Publish Your App
Come back to your new project (”Random Name”) navigation menu and now select ”0Auth consent screen.” As you can see, our new app is in ”Testing” mode, plus it is ”External” by the default. If, for whatever reason – it is ”Internal”, you need to select it to be ”External.” All that is left is to publish our new app so it is not in ”Testing” mode anymore. It needs to be ”In Production” mode. ”Publish App” and ”Push to production” by clicking on the ”Confirm” button. Verification for your app is not required (it will be required if you add more than 10 domains/upload a logo/request sensitive or restricted scopes). Congrats, you’re good to go as long as your new app is ”In Production” mode and ”External.”
Bottom Line
Thank you for reading this full tutorial on how to create your free gmail API so you can receive and automatically reply-back to your contact form inquiries on your website hassle-free! All we needed was our free google account and free gmail email address and now we’re able to communicate through our contact form with whomever sends us a question on our professional website! Stay tuned in for tutorial on how to set everything up and test receiving and auto replying-back to our contact form messages by connecting our free gmail email address to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol! Have a nice day!