I didn’t hate Google. I disliked it for its Monopolistic behavior, for disdain for users.

Now I hate it.

I tried to read IMAP messages from Gmail to my own project. I had some problems in doing so.

I also found Gmail to SQLite program, which was doing mostly what I wanted, but also provided a clear instructions for Installation. It said that I need Gmail OAuth credentials, and provided description how to set them up.

There were clean 6 steps.

After trying them I have to admit the instruction must have became outdated, because it required some additional steps.

Additional steps

• Google said that my “API app” was not published, so I published it

• Google said that app cannot be internal, because I am not a workspace user

• for external apps it requires the app to be verified

• in verification they wanted to know project domain, address, video showing how the app is going to be used, and other details

• they wanted to have my justification for scopes

• even if I provided the data it said that the verification process could take time.

All these steps just to access Gmail messages via a script.

Solutions

It all looks like a maze of settings, where requiring any of users to go above the hoops required by Google is simply too much.

It turns out that it is easier to just quit Gmail, Google. I forewarded the emails to other Server (Polish onet), which has IMAP server access and I started using it normally.

Moral of the story

Google has already correctly implemented EEE (Embrace Extend Extinguish) to e-mails. They destroyed the competition, and now it is nearly impossible to create, or to use other servers.

I have read already that mails from outside of Google can take really long time to reach Gmail recepients. I can confirm that this happens, as I self-hosted server for a while.

Google is straight up hostile for anything from outside of their ecosystem.

I hate Google.