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How to setup aerc with Gmail and OAuth2

Here are the steps for setting up the aerc email client with Gmail using OAuth2 authentication.

aerc email client

Step 1: setup Google Cloud project

Follow the instructions in "Setting Up Alpine with Gmail" with the following changes:

Setting Up Alpine with Gmail

The last bit is needed to use Google's OAuth2 authentication script to generate the OAuth2 refresh token (in Step 2), and apparently it is not possible to authorize redirect URIs with credentials for Desktop apps.

This will generate two strings, client_id and client_secret.

Step 2: generate OAuth2 token

Use Google's OAuth2 authentication script to generate an OAuth2 refresh token.

OAuth2 authentication script

python oauth2.py \
  --generate_oauth2_token \
  --user={user} \
  --client_id={client_id} \
  --client_secret={client_secret}

The script will ask you to visit a URL in your browser and follow some directions, and prompt you for a verification code. After visiting the URL and agreeing to various things, you will be provided a verification code (from https://oauth2.dance). Enter this verification code into the script prompt. The script will then print the Refresh Token (in addition two other things that are not needed).

Step 3: configure account in aerc

Edit the accounts.conf file in your aerc configuration directory (usually ~/.config/aerc/), and add the following:

[{account_name}]
source   = imaps+oauthbearer://{user}:{refresh_token}@imap.gmail.com:993?\
  client_id={client_id}&\
  client_secret={client_secret}&\
  token_endpoint=https%3A%2F%2Foauth2.googleapis.com%2Ftoken
outgoing = smtps+oauthbearer://{user}:{refresh_token}@smtp.gmail.com:465?\
  client_id={client_id}&\
  client_secret={client_secret}&\
  token_endpoint=https%3A%2F%2Foauth2.googleapis.com%2Ftoken
default  = INBOX

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