Gmail → Discord Bot (with Reply button)

A Python Discord bot that watches your Gmail inbox and posts new messages to a Discord channel as rich embeds. Each forwarded email includes a Reply button — click it, type your response in the popup, and the bot sends a properly threaded reply straight from your Gmail account.

📧 Gmail inbox ──(poll every 60s)──▶  Python bot  ──(embed + Reply button)──▶  💬 Discord channel
                                         ▲                                            │
                                         │                                            │ click Reply
                                         │                                            ▼
                                         │                                      📝 modal popup
                                         │                                            │
                                         └──────── send threaded reply ◀──────────────┘

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What you get

• New emails appear in Discord within ~60 seconds as blue embeds
• The full email body is rendered (HTML → markdown), with the original HTML attached as a .html file you can open in your browser
• Inline images, attachments, and remote <img> images are downloaded and attached to the Discord message
• Email action buttons (e.g. "Verify email", "View order") appear as real Discord link buttons next to 📨 Reply
• Clicking Reply opens a Discord popup with a single body field — the subject is auto-set to Re: [original]
• Sending posts the reply into the same Gmail thread, so the other person sees a real reply, not a new email
• First run marks your current inbox as "seen", so it won't spam you with historical mail
• Everything is logged to bot.log so you can check what happened even when running headless

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Setup (about 15 minutes, all free)

1. Install Python dependencies

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/gmail-discord-bot.git
cd gmail-discord-bot
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate          # Windows PowerShell / CMD
# source .venv/bin/activate     # macOS / Linux
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Create your Discord bot (new!)

Unlike webhooks, buttons require a real bot with a token.

1. Go to https://discord.com/developers/applications
2. New Application → give it a name like Gmail Bot → Create
3. Left sidebar → Bot
4. Under Privileged Gateway Intents, leave all toggles OFF — we don't need any privileged intents
5. Under the bot username, click Reset Token → Yes, do it → Copy
   • ⚠️ Treat this like a password. Anyone with it can control your bot.
6. Left sidebar → OAuth2 → URL Generator
7. Scopes: check bot and applications.commands
8. Bot Permissions: check Send Messages, Embed Links, Read Message History
9. Copy the Generated URL at the bottom of the page → paste it in your browser
10. Pick the server where you want the bot → Authorize

The bot should now appear (offline) in your server's member list.

3. Decide where the bot should send emails

You have two options — pick one (or set both; DM mode wins if both are set).

Option A — DM mode (recommended). The bot slides every email into your personal Discord DMs.

1. In Discord: User Settings → Advanced → Developer Mode (turn it ON).
2. Right-click your own profile in any server → Copy User ID.
3. You'll paste this as DM_USER_ID in step 5.
4. Make sure you share at least one server with the bot (you already do from step 2) and that your DM privacy settings allow messages from server members.

Option B — Channel mode. The bot posts into a server channel.

1. Turn on Developer Mode as above.
2. Right-click the target channel → Copy Channel ID.
3. You'll paste this as DISCORD_CHANNEL_ID in step 5.

4. Get Gmail API credentials

1. https://console.cloud.google.com/ → create or select a project.
2. APIs & Services → Library → search Gmail API → Enable.
3. APIs & Services → OAuth consent screen → External → fill in the required fields → add your own Gmail address under Test users.
4. APIs & Services → Credentials → Create Credentials → OAuth client ID → application type Desktop app → Create → Download JSON.
5. Rename the downloaded file to credentials.json and put it next to gmail_to_discord.py.

5. Fill in .env

Copy the template:

cp .env.example .env

Open .env in any text editor and fill in the values you collected:

DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN=the token you copied in step 2

# Pick one (or both — DM_USER_ID wins if both are set)
DM_USER_ID=your own Discord user ID (Option A)
DISCORD_CHANNEL_ID=the channel ID (Option B)

POLL_INTERVAL_SECONDS=60

If you're upgrading from an older version that only had the gmail.readonly scope, delete token.json so the next run re-authenticates with the new gmail.send scope:

Remove-Item .\token.json -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

6. Run it

python gmail_to_discord.py

First run:

• A browser window opens asking you to sign into Google
• You'll see "Google hasn't verified this app" → Advanced → Go to [app name] (unsafe) → Continue
• You'll be asked to grant two permissions: read Gmail and send mail as you
• Close the browser tab when done
• The bot connects to Discord — you'll see it come online in your server

Send yourself a test email, wait up to 60 seconds, and the embed should show up in your channel with a Reply button.

Press Ctrl+C to stop.

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Using the Reply button

1. Click 📨 Reply on any forwarded email
2. A popup appears with a single text area
3. Type your reply → click Submit
4. The bot confirms with an ephemeral message (only you can see it)
5. Check your Gmail — the reply is in the same thread as the original email

The reply:

• Is sent from your Gmail address as a real email
• Is properly threaded via In-Reply-To / References headers
• Uses Re: [original subject] automatically

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Files in this repo

File	Purpose
gmail_to_discord.py	The bot (polling + Reply button + modal + Gmail send)
requirements.txt	Python dependencies
.env.example	Template for secrets (real .env is gitignored)
.gitignore	Keeps secrets, token, and logs out of git
run_bot.bat	Double-click launcher (visible window, good for debugging)
README.md	This file

Runtime-only (not in git):

File	Purpose
.env	Your bot token + DM user ID / channel ID
credentials.json	OAuth client from Google Cloud
token.json	Saved OAuth token after first sign-in
seen_ids.json	Message IDs already forwarded, to prevent duplicates
bot.log	Runtime log, auto-truncated at ~500 KB

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Running it in the background on startup (Windows)

To make the bot launch silently every time you log into Windows:

1. Press Win + R, type shell:startup, press Enter — this opens your user Startup folder.
2. Right-click in the folder → New → Shortcut.
3. Paste the full path to pythonw.exe inside your venv, for example:

   C:\path\to\gmail-discord-bot\.venv\Scripts\pythonw.exe
   

4. Click Next, name it Gmail-Discord Bot, click Finish.
5. Right-click the new shortcut → Properties:
   • Target: append a space and gmail_to_discord.py at the end
   • Start in: set this to the project folder (e.g. C:\path\to\gmail-discord-bot)
   • Click OK
6. Double-click the shortcut once to verify it starts (you won't see a window — that's the point).

Useful commands once it's running in the background:

# Is the bot alive?
Get-Process pythonw -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

# See the latest log entries
Get-Content .\bot.log -Tail 20

# Restart after editing code (run from the project folder)
Stop-Process -Name pythonw -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Start-Process ".\.venv\Scripts\pythonw.exe" -ArgumentList "gmail_to_discord.py"

On macOS/Linux, use launchd / systemd --user / a cron @reboot entry instead — the Python script itself is cross-platform.

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Troubleshooting

"DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN not set" — You haven't filled in .env. Do step 5.

"Channel 12345 not visible to the bot" — Either the bot isn't invited to the server, or the channel ID is wrong. Redo steps 2 and 3.

"Access blocked: [app] has not completed the Google verification process" — Your Gmail address isn't in the OAuth consent screen's Test users list. Add it.

Bot posts emails but the Reply button does nothing — Check bot.log for errors. Most likely cause: the bot token is missing applications.commands scope in its invite URL. Re-invite with the correct scopes from step 2.

"Failed to send reply: insufficient_scope" — Your token.json still has the old readonly-only scopes. Delete token.json and run again to re-authenticate.

Stop the headless bot — Stop-Process -Name pythonw

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Security notes

• Your bot token, OAuth credentials, and saved token are all gitignored
• The Gmail scopes used are gmail.readonly + gmail.send — the bot can read incoming mail and send as you, but cannot delete or modify existing messages
• If you ever leak your bot token, immediately Reset Token in the Discord Developer Portal — the old token becomes useless instantly
• Same for credentials.json / token.json: revoke at https://myaccount.google.com/permissions

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Ideas for later

• Filter by sender/subject (only forward important mail)
• Add an "Archive" button next to Reply
• Deploy to a Raspberry Pi or cloud host so it runs 24/7 without your PC