Gmail

Gmail forwarding to Val Town

You can set up email forwarding from your Gmail account to your Val Town email address.

1. Create a val with an email trigger
2. In that val, log the email object to the console:

export default async function (e: Email) {
  console.log(e);
}

3. Copy that email trigger’s email address

4. In Gmail Forwarding and POP settings, click Add forwarding address. If you do not see that button, click creating a filter, then add some arbitrary search criteria and click Create filter, then you should see the Add forwarding address button, which should take you to another Add forwarding address button.Paste your val’s email address and click Next → Proceed → OK.

5. Gmail will send a confirmation to your val. View the val’s logs and click on the confirmation link:

That URL will likely end in /r/n, which will make it invalid. Remove the /r/n to get it to work. Then click Confirm.

6. Back in Gmail settings, you can now set up a filter to forward certain emails to your val’s email address. Or you can forward all emails by selecting Forward a copy of incoming mail to <your val email>.

7. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Sending email from Val Town using Gmail SMTP

You can send email from your val using Gmail’s SMTP server.

1. In your Google account, go to Security settings and enable 2-Step Verification.

2. After enabling 2-Step Verification, go to App Passwords and create an app password for “Mail” on “Other” (name it “Val Town” or something similar). Copy the generated password.

3. In your val, set the following environment variables:

• GMAIL_USER: Your full Gmail email address
• GMAIL_PASS: The app password you generated in step 2

4. Use the following code to send an email using Gmail’s SMTP server:

import nodemailer from "npm:nodemailer";
const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
  service: "gmail",
  auth: {
    user: Deno.env.get("GMAIL_USER"),
    pass: Deno.env.get("GMAIL_PASS"),
  },
});

const info = await transporter.sendMail({
  from: Deno.env.get("GMAIL_USER"),
  to: "steve@val.town",
  subject: "Test email from Val Town",
  text: "This is a test email sent from Val Town using Gmail SMTP.",
});
console.log(info);

5. Run your val and check the logs and recipient’s inbox.

You can ignore any Failed to resolve IPv4 addresses with current network message. Nodemailer first tries IPv4 then IPv6, so if IPv4 fails it falls back to IPv6.

Getting email from Gmail IMAP

You can also fetch emails from your Gmail account using the IMAP protocol.

1. In your Google account, go to Security settings and enable 2-Step Verification.

2. After enabling 2-Step Verification, go to App Passwords and create an app password for “Mail” on “Other” (name it “Val Town” or something similar). Copy the generated password.

3. Set up the following environment variables in your val:

• GMAIL_USER: Your full Gmail email address
• GMAIL_PASS: The app password you generated in the previous section

4. Use the following code to fetch emails using IMAP:

import { ImapFlow } from "npm:imapflow";
const client = new ImapFlow({
  host: "imap.gmail.com",
  port: 993,
  secure: true,
  auth: {
    user: Deno.env.get("GMAIL_USER"),
    pass: Deno.env.get("GMAIL_PASS"),
  },
});
await client.connect();
await client.mailboxOpen("INBOX");
for await (let message of client.fetch("1:*", { envelope: true })) {
  console.log(message.envelope);
}
await client.logout();