Crushing the Command Line: Automating Email Reading with Python & Amazon Q Developer

[Lomanu4]

Terminal Email Reader: A Python Automation Project

Introduction


As a student balancing classes, freelance work, and personal tasks, I wanted a way to check my Gmail quickly—without leaving the terminal. So I built a Python script that fetches unread emails and displays them right in the command line, showing the sender, subject, and body.

Thanks to Amazon Q Developer CLI, I streamlined the development process by asking coding questions directly in my terminal. This is my submission for the "Crushing the Command Line" prompt of the Amazon Q Developer "Quack The Code" Challenge.

What My Project Does


This script:

• Logs into Gmail using IMAP with credentials stored securely in a .env file
• Fetches and decodes unread emails
• Prints cleanly formatted output (sender, subject, and body) in the terminal
• Uses .gitignore to exclude sensitive files (like .env)

How I Used Amazon Q Developer


Amazon Q Developer CLI acted like a coding assistant:

• Security Setup: Asked how to manage .env files safely in Python projects.
• IMAP Debugging: Helped troubleshoot email-fetching logic and MIME decoding.
• Code Simplification: Suggested improvements to reduce complexity and improve readability.

Without Q Developer, I’d have spent hours Googling—instead, I got answers right in my terminal.

What I Learned

• How to use IMAP to access Gmail programmatically
• Securing credentials with python-dotenv and .gitignore
• Decoding MIME email formats (especially tricky with Gmail’s encoding)
• How powerful Amazon Q Developer is for real-time debugging and learning

How to Run the Script

1. Clone the repo:

git clone

Пожалуйста Авторизируйтесь или Зарегистрируйтесь для просмотра скрытого текста.

cd email-automation

1. Set up your .env file:

EMAIL=your-email@gmail.com
PASSWORD=your-app-password # Generate this in Gmail settings

Note: Never commit .env to version control.

1. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

1. Run it:

python email_automation.py

Note: Enable IMAP in Gmail settings and create an App Password if you use 2FA.

GitHub Repository

Пожалуйста Авторизируйтесь или Зарегистрируйтесь для просмотра скрытого текста.

Final Thoughts


This project taught me how powerful command-line automation can be—and how tools like Amazon Q Developer make coding faster and more intuitive. Next, I’d love to add features like email filtering or mark-as-read functionality.

Thanks for reading! Feedback is welcome.

Пожалуйста Авторизируйтесь или Зарегистрируйтесь для просмотра скрытого текста.