Chromium and Google Account login

Question

I've download Chromium 53.0.2745.0 for Mac and I've no success in login with my Google account. I type my email, my password and the login box just closes.

I tried different Google accounts, turned off two step auth and nothing.

Then I've installed 51.0.2683.0 via Brew and I finally got access. However, when I open the new one (53) I see "Account sign-in details are out of date."

What is wrong here?

Answer 1

According to the documentation, you need a Google API in order to use the most recent Chromium.

After you get the API key and the other information, run in the terminal:

launchctl setenv GOOGLE_API_KEY yourkey
launchctl setenv GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID yourclientid
launchctl setenv GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET yourclientsecret

The reason for this is: your pre-built Chromium needs to know what is your API. Without this, you are unable to use the Google Sync service

Answer 2

Following answer is based on this excellent gist by cvan with modification to use launchctl as suggested by @leozera. All credit goes to them. I republish for visibility (it took me several hours to find original document).

1. Download Chromium or use Homebrew to install it:

    brew install --cask chromium
   

2. If you launch it, you'll notice a yellow disclaimer message appear as a doorhanger:

   Google API Keys are missing. Some functionality of Chromium will be disabled. Learn More.

3. Clicking on that link takes you to the confusing API Keys docs page.

4. If you aren't already, subscribe to the [email protected] mailing list. (You can just subscribe to the list and choose to not receive any mail. FYI: the Chromium project restricts the APIs to those subscribed to that group - that is, Chromium devs.)

5. Make sure you are logged in with the Google account associated with the email address that you used to subscribe to chromium-dev.

6. Log in to the Google Cloud Platform, and select an existing project or press the "Create Project" button.

7. From the project's API Manager, select the Credentials tab in the sidebar.

8. Create a Browser API Key.

9. You'll see a modal with an API key. Copy and paste that somewhere.

10. Now create an OAuth Client ID.

11. After you complete all the steps and the "content screen," you'll be presented with a modal with your Google Client ID and Client Secret.

12. You'll need to set three environment variables. In the shell type:

    launchctl setenv GOOGLE_API_KEY yourkey
    launchctl setenv GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID yourclientid
    launchctl setenv GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET yourclientsecret
    

13. Quit chromium if you have it running (make sure to actually quit it, as it may be running in the even without any window opened, e.g. use task switcher alt-tab and alt-q).

14. Start Chromium using Spotlight (cmd+space) or Launchpad.