Accessing Gmail emails in Android

Question

So basically I'm attempting to make an interactive live wallaper that basically displays your unread gmail emails on your wallpaper. I'm trying to figure out how to access a person's gmail account on their device (with their permission of course).

I came across this old question: How to get the number of unread gmail mails (on android) - which detailed how to get the number of unread emails and was hoping that would be a start. But my app was being denied the permission: com.google.android.gm.permission.READ_GMAIL. Upon further research I found this support thread: http://www.google.bg/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=1728955d050a12bd&hl=en - which basically says that at version 2.3.5 of Gmail they shut off that non-public api access to Gmail. Which broke a lot of apps at the time.. But yeah.

So basically. I was wondering if there's a new correct way to do this? I haven't been able to find one. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Answer 1

The Java Mail API works really well for interacting with IMAP and POP3 mail servers and I have had success accessing GMAIL accounts with it. Looking over the API, I don't see anything that would keep it from running on Android. I recommend that you give it a try: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javamail/index-138643.html