Every Step You Take – Weekly Insights from Your iPhone Step Data

I had a wearable to track my activity for a while, but ended up checking my scores in the app more than improving my routine. To focus on building consistency, I wanted to track my activity with the least noise – a single metric that doesn't need a wearable, step counting, and without the distraction of an extra app.

With Every Step You Take, your iPhone step count data is compiled into a weekly report for you email inbox. By having to reflect on your step data regularly, small decisions to be more active become the default.

Features

• Access your iPhone step data from Apple Health, without a seperate app
• Get an automatic weekly report of your step count
• Step counting is simplest was to track activity, and doesn't require a wearable
• More steps per day = healthier lifestyle in the long run

Setup

There are three parts to the workflow:

1. A Shortcut and Automation on iPhone to send step data over email
2. A Cloud Function triggered daily (Cloud Scheduler) to read emails and upload daily step data to Firestore
3. A Cloud Function triggered weekly to summarise the step history and send an email

Setup Shortcut and Automation (iPhone)

• Upload the shortcut in iPhone>Daily steps email.shortcut to your iPhone

The iPhone shortcut reads step data from Health from the last day and sends as an email. Body in the form of date, step_count (e.g. 2024-08-18, 12518)

Automations with email cannot run automatically on lock screen (!). The current workaround is to:

• Set an automation to turn on aeroplane mode at 12 am each night
• Set another automation to trigger the shortcut when aeroplane is turned off (i.e. in the morning when phone is checked)

Create a Gmail account

Create a gmail account to receive daily step data, and send the weekly summary

To allow read access:

• Enable IMAP under settings To allow send access:
• In Gmail, setup an app password, password. 2FA needs to be enabled, then create at https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
• Create a .env in local directory and add as GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD="your app password"

Create a Google Cloud project

Note, the dedicated gmail doesn't need to be in the same workspace as the Google Cloud project. OAuth is used for gmail access Enable API & Services for:

• Gmail API - for reading emails and marking as read
• Cloud storage - for storing token for gmail read access
• Firestore – for storing step history
• Cloud run functions – for two scripts, daily step count uploads and weekly summary email
• Cloud scheduler - for triggering daily and weekly jobs

OAuth for Gmail

• Create OAuth consent screen
  • Scopes need to include .../auth/gmail.modify and .../auth/gmail.readonly
• Create OAuth credentials
  • Credentials > Create Credentials > Create OAuth client ID (Application type: Desktop app)
• Download .json, save as oauth_credentials.json in local directory

Program authenticates through OAuth screen once. Stores token in Google Storage bucket. Subsequent authentication accesses this bucket, to refresh the token. This means the program needs to be run once locally, to follow the Oauth workflow, before it will work as a cloud function Note: This token (including the ability to refresh) expires every 7 days when the Oauth consent screen is in Testing. Must be published

Set up Firestore

• Create service account, give roles for Firestore

  • Requires Cloud Datastore User, Firebase Admin SDK Administrator Service Agent, Firebase Rules System, Firestore Service Agent, Cloud Storage for Firebase Admin

• Create .json key and download, save as ./google_service_account_credentials.json

• Create a Firestore database

  • Leave name as (default)

Local setup

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate 
pip install -r requirements.txt

Create .env with:

RUNNING_LOCALLY=True
GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD="my app password"

Run this once to trigger OAuth workflow, which will save token for future runs

python gmail_reader.py

Directory should also have credentials ./oauth_credentials.json and ./google_service_account_credentials.json as above

Update variables:

TO_EMAIL = your_personal_email@gmail.com # Personal email to receive summary
FROM_EMAIL = your_steps_email@gmail.com # Email which receives step data, sends summary email

Deploy Cloud Functions

Ensure service account associated with project has required permissions with:

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding [PROJECT-ID] \
  --member="serviceAccount:[PROJECT-ID]@appspot.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/cloudfunctions.developer"

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding [PROJECT-ID] \
  --member="serviceAccount:[PROJECT-ID]@appspot.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/cloudfunctions.invoker"

Deploy script which updates steps history:

gcloud functions deploy run_steps_history_updater \
    --gen2 \
    --entry-point run_steps_history_updater \
    --runtime python39 \
    --trigger-http \
    --allow-unauthenticated \
    --memory 512MB \
    --timeout 540s \
    --region us-central1

Deploy script which sends :

gcloud functions deploy run_steps_email_sender \
    --gen2 \
    --entry-point run_steps_email_sender \
    --runtime python39 \
    --trigger-http \
    --allow-unauthenticated \
    --memory 512MB \
    --timeout 540s \
    --region us-central1 \
    --set-env-vars GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD="$(sed -n 's/^GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD="\(.*\)"/\1/p' .env)"

Schedule jobs

In Cloud Scheduler > Create

• For daily_steps_history_update, Frequency 0 12 * * * (12:00 every day)
• For weekly_steps_email_sender, Frequency 30 12 * * 1 (12:30 every Monday)

Target type HTTP URL: https://us-central1-[PROJECT-ID].cloudfunctions.net/run_steps_history_updater HTTP method: POST Auth header: Add OIDC token Service account: App Engine default service account ([PROJECT-ID]@appspot@gserviceaccount.com)

Userful gcloud functions, handling accounts and projects

• Check login with glcoud auth list
• Change account with gcloud config set account email_address
• Check the project with gcloud config get-value project
• Change the project with gcloud config set project YOUR-PROJECT-ID
• List all service accounts in project gcloud iam service-accounts list
• Default service account should be: [PROJECT-ID]@appspot.gserviceaccount.com
• Ensure default service account has necessary permissions

Running

Run locally

Run python main.py to start the flask server

Steps History Updater

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/run_steps_history_updater

Steps Email Sender

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/run_steps_email_sender

Run cloud function

gcloud functions call run_steps_history_updater --region us-central1

gcloud functions call run_steps_email_sender --region us-central1

TODO:

• Add a check for missing data in step history