Python script to mark certain older messages as read in gmail. SEE WARNING BELOW.
Note that this is supposedly possible within the normal web user interface, though that functionality seems to be borked as of when I'm writing this.
This is modified from Devansh07's GeeksforGeeks article How to read Emails from Gmail using Gmail API in Python.
- Create a Google Cloud account if you don't have one
- Create a project for (your version of) this app and generate credentials for it, following the instructions in Devansh07's article. In addition to what's described there, you will need to allow write access with one of the OAuth scopes
https://mail.google.com/orhttps://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify. - Save the application secrets JSON file as
client_secret.json
There are two important global variables defined near the top of the file:
### USER CONFIGURATION ###
REALLY_DO_IT=False
SEARCH_STRING='older:1/7/2023 -label:IMPORTANT is:unread -is:starred'SEARCH_STRING is a GMail search string (the q parameter for users.messages.list) indicating the set of messages to mark as unread.
REALLY_DO_IT is a flag. If set to False, the script will run its queries and enumerate the messages to mark, but not actually change them. If set to True, the script will do its thing.
This script is meant as a starting point for developers, and it does not have the niceties or quality assurance expected for end-user software. You need to understand the code and modify it to suit your needs before granting it access to your mailbox and running it.
This script is not interactive, there are no command-line options, and there are minimal warnings. If it is bug-free, it will do what the preceding configuration variables tell it to, as soon as you run it. If there are errors, it will do whatever it feels like, and do so with full write access to your gmail account. UNDERSTAND THE CODE before giving it access to your account and running it.