This is a simple Python program that checks the Massachusetts' COVID vaccine appointment website every so often for availablities.
This program requires the following dependencies:
-
Python 3
- To install, go to Python's website and download the most recent version of Python
- During the install process, make sure Add Python 3.x to PATH is checked
- you should be able to open a command line and run
python --version
-
Packages
- Please install the following python packages by running the following commands:
pip install beautifulsoup4 pip install requests -
Beautiful Soup 4: This library makes it easier to parse the html from web pages
-
Requests: This is a library to make http requests to the vaccine appointment website
-
Git
- Check to see if Git is already installed by running
git --version - If it's not installed, head to Git's website to install
- Check to see if Git is already installed by running
In addition to those dependencies, you need to edit the config file config.json to include your corresponding information, such as email addresss and Google App credentials.
By setting up Gmail App credentials, you are allowing this program to send you mail, notifying you when an appointment becomes available.
To create your gmail app credentials, follow these steps:
- Go to your Google Account settings at My Google Account
- On the left sidebar, select Security
- Under the Signing in to Google Section, select App Passwords
- Enter your Google Password if necessary
- Click Select App, and select Mail
- Click Select Device, and choose the corresponding device
- Click Generate
- Copy and paste the generated password into config.json
Note: Google creates these passwords for you as an added layer of security, so that you don't have to type in your own Google password.
Copy the program to your computer by running
git clone https://github.com/alecdean/check-covid-appointments.git
cd check-covid-appointments
Please fill out the config.json file to your preferences:
{
// email information
"your_email":"",
// your username (without the @gmail.com part)
"your_gmail_username": "",
// please follow the instructions on the README to get your google app password
"your_google_app_password":"",
// set to true if you'd like to see the average number of requests per minute
"print_statistics": false,
// set to true if you'd an email notification of an appointment
"send_email_notification": false,
// set to false if you don't want a beep to notify you of an opening
"play_sound": true,
// set to true if you'd like to search on 03/03/2021 specifically
"specific_date": true,
// IMPORTANT: adjust this number to the expected number of pages that you can click through
// each additional page takes an extra few seconds to search, so the more pages there are, the longer the program will take
"num_pages":1
}
Once you've filled out the config.json file to your satisfaction, simply run the following commands:
python vaccines.py
After running the last command, you should begin to see the results of each search printed every few seconds.