How to auto log into gmail atom feed with Python?

atom-feed, gmail, python, rss, urllib

Solution

You can use the HTTPBasicAuthHandler, I tried the following and it worked:

import urllib2

def get_unread_msgs(user, passwd):
    auth_handler = urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler()
    auth_handler.add_password(
        realm='New mail feed',
        uri='https://mail.google.com',
        user='%s@gmail.com' % user,
        passwd=passwd
    )
    opener = urllib2.build_opener(auth_handler)
    urllib2.install_opener(opener)
    feed = urllib2.urlopen('https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom')
    return feed.read()

Problem

Gmail has this sweet thing going on to get an atom feed: ``` def gmail_url(user, pwd): return "https://"+str(user)+":"+str(pwd)+"@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom" ``` Now when you do this in a browser, it authenticates and forwards you. But in Python, at least what I'm trying, isn't working right. ``` url = gmail_url(settings.USER, settings.PASS) print url opener = urllib.FancyURLopener() f = opener.open(url) print f.read() ``` Instead of forwarding correctly, it's doing this: ``` >>> https://user:pass@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom Enter username for New mail feed at mail.google.com: ``` This is BAD! I shouldn't have to type in the username and password again!! How can I make it just auto-forward in python as it does in my web browser, so I can get the feed contents without all the BS?

Original source