The google-alerts Python module provides an abstract interface for the Google Alerts service. Google does not provide an official API for this service, so interactions are done through web scripting.
WARNING: Your account password will be obfuscated and saved on the file system. Additionally, post-authentication, a session cookie will also be saved. These can be stolen and re-used to compromise your account. As a best practice, register a new email to manage alerts.
For detailed explanations of the library, please see the wiki.
Install the library:
pip install google-alerts
or python setup.py install
Save your configuration:
google-alerts setup --email <your.mail@foo.com> --password 'password'
Create a monitor:
google-alerts create --term "hello world" --delivery 'rss' --frequency 'realtime'
List monitors:
google-alerts list
Delete a monitor:
google-alerts delete --id '89e517961a3148c7:c395b7d271b4eccc:com:en:US'
This sample code shows some of the range of functionality within the module:
from google_alerts import GoogleAlerts
# Create an instance
ga = GoogleAlerts('your.email@gmail.com', '**password**')
# Authenticate your user
ga.authenticate()
# List configured monitors
ga.list()
# Add a new monitor
ga.create("Hello World", {'delivery': 'RSS'})
# Modify an existing monitor
ga.modify("89e517961a3148c7:c395b7d271b4eccc:com:en:US", {'delivery': 'RSS', 'monitor_match': 'ALL'})
# Delete a monitor
ga.delete("89e517961a3148c7:c395b7d271b4eccc:com:en:US")
Below is an example monitor:
[{
"term": "hello world",
"user_id": "09738342945634096720",
"language": "en",
"monitor_id": "89e517961a3148c7:c395b7d271b4eccc:com:en:US",
"region": "US",
"rss_link": "https://google.com/alerts/feeds/09738342945634096720/9663349274289663466",
"delivery": "RSS",
"match_type": "BEST"
}]
- Add new monitors (RSS or Mail)
- Modify existing monitors
- Delete monitors by ID or term
- List all monitors with details
- Feature: Add a new command line argument to seed a session through the browser
- Change: Added python version detection to the manage script as well
- Feature: Detect when user changes between Python versions during setup
- Bugfix: Setup process appears to finally be bug-free, screw python2 support
- Feature: Added the ability to set the frequency when creating alerts
- Bugfix: Fixed frequency settings when using the mail delivery method
- Change: Explicitly detect when a CAPTCHA is being thrown
- Feature: Take advantage of the config file concept inside of the class
- Feature: Authenticate users with a session file if it's available
- Change: Tell Chrome to avoid using Javascript so we get the old form
- Change: Added headers to all calls to look like less of a bot
- Bugfix: Wrapped a problem area when inspecting the forms in a page
- Bugfix: Handled setup error for Python3
- Feature: Allow users to setup exact match queries
- Change: Added support for Python3
- Bugfix: Removed extra calls causing an error in the decrypt process
- Feature: Added a command line utility to the code for easy testing
- Bugfix: Removed clobbering error inside of delete routine