gmail login failure using python and imaplib

Question

I'm seeking some help logging into a gmail account and downloading some emails using a python script. I'm trying to adapt an approach found here, but I'm running into a problem with step 1, accessing the account via imap.

here is the code I'm starting with:

import email
import imaplib

m = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("imap.gmail.com",993)
rc, resp = m.login('myemailaddress','mypassword')

I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "email.py", line 1, in <module>
    import email, imaplib
  File "/home/will/wd/email.py", line 14, in <module>
     m.login('myemailaddress','mypassword')
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/imaplib.py", line 538, in login
    raise self.error(dat[-1])
 imaplib.error: b'[ALERT] Please log in via your web browser: http://support.google.com/mail/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=78754 (Failure)'

Imap is indeed enabled in gmail settings. I have looked at the instruction on the google support link and questions regarding this error in similar situations, such as here and here, but my situation is different from the first because
1) it never worked to start with, and
2) I'm not running it so frequently to get blocked. Its also different from the second example because this is a normal gmail account, not a custom domain with a google apps account.
Using the https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha to try and allow access doesn't work for me either.

The only thing that allows login to work is to change my google accounts security settings to "allow access for less secure apps".

My question is: how can I fix my code (or my setup more generally) to allow me to login, without relaxing my accounts security settings? Is there some way to meet security requirements using libimap?

Answer 1

If you want to avoid this error without compromising your account's security, use OAuth to authenticate. The protocol is documented here, and there is Python sample code that shows the use of XOAUTH2 with imaplib.

Independent of this, you should consider enabling two-step verification on your account to make it more secure. If you do, you can use an App Password to connect to IMAP, which might also avoid the above warning.

Answer 2

You can try to turn on this: https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps This action solved the same problem for me.

Answer 3

With the new gmail´s update, some mail servr or apps get blocked due to the new gmails security settings. To solve this, I went to https://www.google.com/settings/security page and 'enabled' Access for less secure apps.

Answer 4

I was able to solve this by using a text-mode browser (elinks) to verify my login from the remote server. I had already struggled a while, so I had already tried enabling unsafe apps and various other incantations.

After logging in to gmail.com in elinks (using the html-only interface and having a security code sent to my phone) I could use imaplib to access the gmail account. Presumably one must do web-authentication from the same IP one tries to use Python/imaplib from.

It's probably Better™ to use the OAuth protocol, but this way I got my script running again without rewriting it.