I just started learning about API’s a few days ago and the current project I’m working on has me diving in the deep end using the Gmail API.

I’ve followed the quickstart here:
https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/quickstart/python

And managed to get an email’s contents using this:
https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/reference/rest/v1/users.messages/get

However, most of the ‘data’ from the email seems to be encoded.

I want to get a link from an email and then navigate to that link. How can I extract a link from an email using the Gmail API?

Here’s what my program currently looks like

import os.path

from google.auth.transport.requests import Request
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError

# If modifying these scopes, delete the file token.json.
SCOPES = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly"]


def main():
  """Shows basic usage of the Gmail API.
  Lists the user's Gmail labels.
  """
  creds = None
  # The file token.json stores the user's access and refresh tokens, and is
  # created automatically when the authorization flow completes for the first
  # time.
  if os.path.exists("token.json"):
    creds = Credentials.from_authorized_user_file("token.json", SCOPES)
  # If there are no (valid) credentials available, let the user log in.
  if not creds or not creds.valid:
    if creds and creds.expired and creds.refresh_token:
      creds.refresh(Request())
    else:
      flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
          "credentials.json", SCOPES
      )
      creds = flow.run_local_server(port=0)
    # Save the credentials for the next run
    with open("token.json", "w") as token:
      token.write(creds.to_json())

  try:
    # Call the Gmail API
    service = build("gmail", "v1", credentials=creds) 
    message = service.users().messages().get(userId="me", id="abcdefg123456").execute()
    print(message)