Maisnie

User guide · Software preview

Sign in to Google with your own app

The Google Calendar, with your own Google app source (the advanced way; the simpler one is the Calendar from a private link source, which needs no sign-in) reads your Google calendar after you sign in to Google. Maisnie has no Google app of its own, so the sign-in goes through one you make yourself, in your own Google account, for free. It takes about ten minutes, once. This page walks through it screen by screen. The words in bold are the words Google’s own pages show.

What the app can do is decided at sign-in, not here: Maisnie asks Google for two things only, to read the events on your calendars, and your email address, which it uses to name the account on its card. It never asks to change your calendar, and it never asks for your mail.

Before you start

Turn on Google Calendar, with your own Google app on the Sources step, then open the Accounts step. The card says “You need your own Google app first.” and has two fields, Client ID and Client secret. Keep that page open: the steps below end with two values to copy into it.

Open the Google Cloud console at console.cloud.google.com and sign in with the Google account whose calendar you want Maisnie to read.

1. Create a project

A project is the folder your app lives in at Google.

  1. At the top of the console, open the project list and press New project.
  2. Give it any name you will recognise later, for example “Maisnie at home”. Leave Location as it is.
  3. Press Create, and make sure the new project is the one selected at the top of the page before you go on.

2. Turn on the Google Calendar API

Your app can only reach your calendar once this is on.

  1. In the console’s search box, type “Google Calendar API” and open it.
  2. Press Enable.

This is the page Google shows you when you sign in, and the list of who may use the app.

  1. In the menu, open APIs & Services, then OAuth consent screen. Newer consoles call this area Google Auth Platform, with pages named Branding, Audience and Clients; if you see a Get started button, press it.
  2. Fill in the App name (anything, for example “Maisnie at home”) and your own email address where it asks for a User support email and Contact information.
  3. When it asks for the Audience (or User type), choose External. (“Internal” is only offered to work accounts, and only reaches people in that organisation.)
  4. Agree to the policy and press Create (or Save and continue through the pages).
  5. Open Audience. Under Test users, press Add users, add your own Google address, and save.
  6. Open Branding and fill in the app’s public details, because Google asks for them before it lets you publish (see the box below).
  7. Back on Audience, under Publishing status, press Publish app and confirm.

What to enter on Branding. Under App domain, Google asks for three links. Use Maisnie’s own pages:

  • Application home page: https://maisnie.com/
  • Application privacy policy link: https://maisnie.com/privacy/
  • Application terms of service link: leave it empty. Maisnie has no terms page, and Google does not require one for a personal app.

Google then asks you to list the site under Authorized domains: press Add domain and type maisnie.com (just the name, no https://). For an app only you use, Google does not ask you to prove you own that domain in order to publish it; that proof is only part of sending an app to Google for verification, which you are not doing. If Google does stop you at this point with a message about the domain, delete the three links and the domain, leave App domain empty, and press Save: they are optional for an app that is not sent for verification. (This page could not be checked against a live console for every account type, so the exact wording on your screen may differ a little.)

Why publish: while the app’s status says Testing, Google lets each sign-in last only 7 days. After that the card says the sign-in stopped working and you would have to sign in again every week. Publishing ends that. A personal app that only reads your calendar can be published straight away, without sending it to Google for review; the one difference is that Google shows you a warning that the app is not verified when you sign in (more on that below). That warning is about your own app, and only you see it.

You do not need to add anything on the Data Access page. Maisnie asks for exactly the two things above when you sign in.

4. Make the app’s client ID and secret

  1. Open Clients (on older consoles: Credentials, then Create credentials, then OAuth client ID) and press Create client.
  2. For Application type, choose Desktop app. This matters: Maisnie signs in the way an app on your own computer does.
  3. Give it a name (any name) and press Create.
  4. Google shows the new Client ID and Client secret. Copy each one.

A Desktop app has no return address to fill in: Google sends the sign-in back to the computer it started on by itself, so there is nothing else to set here.

5. Sign in from Maisnie

  1. On the Accounts step, paste the Client ID and the Client secret into the Google Calendar card.
  2. Press Sign in with Google.
  3. Google asks you to choose your account. Because the app is yours and not verified, the next page says Google hasn’t verified this app. Press Advanced, then the link to go on to your app (it names the app you made).
  4. Google lists what the app asks for: seeing the events on your calendars, and seeing your email address. Allow it.
  5. You come back to the Accounts step, and the card says “Connected as” and your address.

If you opened Maisnie from another device (your phone or another computer, not the computer Maisnie runs on), the last page of the sign-in does not load; the card explains what to copy and where to paste it.

From then on your Google meetings arrive as notes on the calendar’s usual schedule.

Google Chat spaces

The Google Chat source reads your Chat spaces and direct messages with the same kind of app, and it keeps its own sign-in, so it never touches the calendar’s. Use the same project and the same Desktop app client if you like. What differs:

  1. Turn on the Google Chat API. In the console’s search box, type “Google Chat API”, open it and press Enable.
  2. Set up the Chat app. Google asks every project that uses the Chat API to describe a Chat app, even though Maisnie only reads as you. On the Google Chat API page press Manage, open Configuration, give the app a name and a short description, and save. (This is what Google’s documentation says the Chat API needs; it has not been tried against a real project yet, so if the card says the Chat API “needs a Chat app set up”, this is the step.)
  3. The two permissions. You do not add them anywhere: when you sign in, Google lists seeing your Chat spaces and seeing your Chat messages, both read only. Maisnie asks for nothing that can send, edit or delete a message.
  4. Turn on Google Chat on the Sources step, paste the Client ID and Client secret into its card on the Accounts step, and press Sign in with Google, as in step 5 above.

Google Chat needs a Google Workspace account. A personal Gmail account has no Chat spaces this way, and the card says so in plain words. Names: with your own sign-in Google often sends a message’s author as a number with no name, so those lines read “Someone”; your own lines read “You”.

Signing out

Press Sign out on the Google card. Maisnie tells Google to end its access and forgets the sign-in on this computer; notes already in your vault stay where they are.

To check at Google, or to remove the app’s access from there, open myaccount.google.com/permissions, choose your app and remove its access. You can also delete the whole project in the Google Cloud console if you no longer want the app at all.

If it does not work

  • The sign-in stops working after about a week. The app is still in Testing. Open the Google Cloud console, go to OAuth consent screen (or Audience), and press Publish app, then sign in again.
  • The card says “Google would not share the calendar.” The Google Calendar API is not turned on in this project (do step 2), or you did not allow the calendar on Google’s last page. Fix that, then press Sign in with Google again.
  • Google says the app was not found, or the sign-in fails straight away. The Client ID or the Client secret is not the one Google showed, or it belongs to a different project. Copy both again from Clients and paste them into the card. Check the client is a Desktop app: a Web application client does not work here.
  • The Google Chat card says the Google Chat API is not turned on, or needs a Chat app set up. Do steps 1 and 2 of the Google Chat section above, then press Sign in with Google again.
  • Google will not let you publish, or complains about the app domain or the links. Open Branding and compare with step 3. If a link or the domain is flagged, remove the three links and the authorized domain, save, and press Publish app again.
  • Google says you do not have access. Your address is not in Test users, or you signed in with a different Google account from the one you added.

Next

Back to connect your accounts, or the same steps for Microsoft.