Use your own Google key

about five minutes, once

Gmail Connect normally signs you in through a shared Google app. Google caps any shared app that reads mail at 100 people, for the lifetime of the app, and shows an "unverified app" warning until it passes a paid annual security audit.

Making your own key removes both. No cap, no warning about someone else's app, and nothing shared with any other user — the key belongs to a Google project you own, and only you ever use it. Gmail Connect then talks to Google directly, with nothing of ours in the path at all.

You will need a Google account. There is no billing, no card, and no code to write.

1 Make a project

  1. Open console.cloud.google.com/projectcreate.
  2. Give it any name — My Mail Widget is fine — and press Create.
  3. Wait for the notification that it is ready, and make sure it is the project selected in the bar at the top.

2 Turn on the Gmail API

  1. Open the Gmail API page.
  2. Press Enable. That is the whole step.

3 Fill in the consent screen

Google moved this out of "APIs & Services" into the Google Auth Platform during 2025, so most guides you will find online describe menus that no longer exist. These are the pages as they are now:

Branding App name and your own email address. Do not upload a logo — that alone forces a verification review you do not need.
Audience Choose External. Add your own Gmail address under Test users, then press Publish app.
Data access Add or remove scopes → paste https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify into the manual box → Add to table → Update → Save.
Publish it, don't leave it in Testing. A project in Testing hands out keys that Google expires after 7 days, and your widget would drop out every week. Publishing shows you an "unverified app" screen the first time you sign in — that is expected for a project only you use, and you click through it once.

4 Create the key

  1. Open Clients → Create client.
  2. Application type: Web application.
  3. Under Authorised redirect URIs, add this exactly — trailing slash included:
  4. Press Create. Google shows a Client ID and a Client secret once — copy both before closing that dialog.

5 Sign in with it

  1. On your EDGE, the widget is showing a QR code. Scan it, or open the sign-in page and enter the code printed under it.
  2. On the sign-in page open Use a Google key of my own instead.
  3. Paste your Client ID and Client secret, then press Sign in with Google.
  4. Click through the "unverified app" screen — Advanced → Go to … — and approve.

Your inbox opens on the panel. From then on the widget renews its own access with your key and never contacts us again.

Back to sign-in