ruby-gmail

Author(s)

  • Daniel Parker of BehindLogic.com

Extra thanks for specific feature contributions from:

Description

A Rubyesque interface to Gmail, with all the tools you'll need. Search, read and send multipart emails; archive, mark as read/unread, delete emails; and manage labels.

Features

  • Search emails
  • Read emails (handles attachments)
  • Emails: Label, archive, delete, mark as read/unread/spam
  • Create and delete labels
  • Create and send multipart email messages in plaintext and/or html, with inline images and attachments
  • Utilizes Gmail's IMAP & SMTP, MIME-type detection and parses and generates MIME properly.

Problems:

  • May not correctly read malformed MIME messages. This could possibly be corrected by having IMAP parse the MIME structure.
  • Cannot grab the plain or html message without also grabbing attachments. It might be nice to lazy-[down]load attachments.

Example Code:

1) Require gmail

require 'gmail'

2) Start an authenticated gmail session

#    If you pass a block, the session will be passed into the block,
#    and the session will be logged out after the block is executed.
gmail = Gmail.new(username, password)
# ...do things...
gmail.logout

Gmail.new(username, password) do |gmail|
  # ...do things...
end

3) Count and gather emails!

# Get counts for messages in the inbox
gmail.inbox.count
gmail.inbox.count(:unread)
gmail.inbox.count(:read)

# Count with some criteria
gmail.inbox.count(:after => Date.parse("2010-02-20"), :before => Date.parse("2010-03-20"))
gmail.inbox.count(:on => Date.parse("2010-04-15"))
gmail.inbox.count(:from => "[email protected]")
gmail.inbox.count(:to => "[email protected]")

# Combine flags and options
gmail.inbox.count(:unread, :from => "[email protected]")

# Labels work the same way as inbox
gmail.mailbox('Urgent').count

# Getting messages works the same way as counting: optional flag, and optional arguments
# Remember that every message in a conversation/thread will come as a separate message.
gmail.inbox.emails(:unread, :before => Date.parse("2010-04-20"), :from => "[email protected]")

4) Work with emails!

# any news older than 4-20, mark as read and archive it...
gmail.inbox.emails(:before => Date.parse("2010-04-20"), :from => "[email protected]").each do |email|
  email.mark(:read) # can also mark :unread or :spam
  email.archive!
end

# delete emails from X...
gmail.inbox.emails(:from => "x-fiancé@gmail.com").each do |email|
  email.delete!
end

# Save all attachments in the "Faxes" label to a folder
folder = "/where/ever"
gmail.mailbox("Faxes").emails.each do |email|
  if !email.message.attachments.empty?
    email.message.save_attachments_to(folder)
  end
end

# Save just the first attachment from the newest unread email (assuming pdf)
# For #save_to_file:
#   + provide a path - save to attachment filename in path
#   + provide a filename - save to file specified
#   + provide no arguments - save to attachment filename in current directory
email = gmail.inbox.emails(:unread).first
email.attachments[0].save_to_file("/path/to/location")

# Add a label to a message
email.label("Faxes")

# Or "move" the message to a label
email.move_to("Faxes")

5) Create new emails!

Creating emails now uses the amazing Mail rubygem. See its documentation here. Ruby-gmail will automatically configure your Mail emails to be sent via your Gmail account's SMTP, so they will be in your Gmail's "Sent" folder. Also, no need to specify the "From" email either, because ruby-gmail will set it for you.

gmail.deliver do
  to "[email protected]"
  subject "Having fun in Puerto Rico!"
  text_part do
    body "Text of plaintext message."
  end
  html_part do
    body "<p>Text of <em>html</em> message.</p>"
  end
  add_file "/path/to/some_image.jpg"
end
# Or, generate the message first and send it later
email = gmail.generate_message do
  to "[email protected]"
  subject "Having fun in Puerto Rico!"
  body "Spent the day on the road..."
end
email.deliver!
# Or...
gmail.deliver(email)

Requirements

  • ruby
  • net/smtp
  • net/imap
  • tmail
  • shared-mime-info rubygem (for MIME-detection when attaching files)

Install

gem install ruby-gmail

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2009 BehindLogic

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.