Sending mail from Python using SMTP

Question

I m using the following method to send mail from Python using SMTP  Is it the right method to use or are there gotchas I m missing    from smtplib import SMTP import datetime  debuglevel   0  smtp   SMTP   smtp set debuglevel debuglevel  smtp connect  YOUR MAIL SERVER   26  smtp login  USERNAME DOMAIN    PASSWORD    from addr    John Doe  lt john doe net gt   to addr    foo bar com   subj    hello  date   datetime datetime now   strftime    d  m  Y  H  M     message text    Hello nThis is a mail from your server n nBye n   msg    From   s nTo   s nSubject   s nDate   s n n s               from addr  to addr  subj  date  message text    smtp sendmail from addr  to addr  msg  smtp quit

User · Answer

Also if you want to do smtp auth with TLS as opposed to SSL then you just have to change the port  use 587  and do smtp starttls     This worked for me       smtp connect  YOUR MAIL SERVER   587  smtp ehlo   smtp starttls   smtp ehlo   smtp login  USERNAME DOMAIN    PASSWORD

User · Answer

What about this    import smtplib  SERVER    localhost   FROM    sender example com  TO     user example com     must be a list  SUBJECT    Hello    TEXT    This message was sent with Python s smtplib      Prepare actual message  message        From   s To   s Subject   s   s        FROM       join TO   SUBJECT  TEXT     Send the mail  server   smtplib SMTP SERVER  server sendmail FROM  TO  message  server quit

User · Answer

Make sure you don t have any firewalls blocking SMTP   The first time I tried to send an email  it was blocked both by Windows Firewall and McAfee - took forever to find them both

User · Answer

The script I use is quite similar  I post it here as an example of how to use the email   modules to generate MIME messages  so this script can be easily modified to attach pictures  etc   I rely on my ISP to add the date time header   My ISP requires me to use a secure smtp connection to send mail  I rely on the smtplib module  downloadable at http   www1 cs columbia edu  db2501 ssmtplib py   As in your script  the username and password   given dummy values below   used to authenticate on the SMTP server  are in plain text in the source  This is a security weakness  but the best alternative depends on how careful you need  want   to be about protecting these                                                usr local bin python   SMTPserver    smtp att yahoo com  sender        me my email domain net  destination     recipient her email domain com    USERNAME    USER NAME FOR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER  PASSWORD    PASSWORD INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER     typical values for text subtype are plain  html  xml text subtype    plain    content      Test message      subject  Sent from Python   import sys import os import re  from smtplib import SMTP SSL as SMTP         this invokes the secure SMTP protocol  port 465  uses SSL    from smtplib import SMTP                    use this for standard SMTP protocol    port 25  no encryption     old version   from email MIMEText import MIMEText from email mime text import MIMEText  try      msg   MIMEText content  text subtype      msg  Subject          subject     msg  From       sender   some SMTP servers will do this automatically  not all      conn   SMTP SMTPserver      conn set debuglevel False      conn login USERNAME  PASSWORD      try          conn sendmail sender  destination  msg as string        finally          conn quit    except      sys exit   mail failed   s     CUSTOM ERROR      give an error message

User · Answer

Or import smtplib   from email message import EmailMessage from getpass import getpass   password   getpass    message   EmailMessage   message set content  Message content here   message  Subject      Your subject here  message  From      quot USERNAME DOMAIN quot  message  To      quot you mail com quot   try      smtp server   None     smtp server   smtplib SMTP  quot YOUR MAIL SERVER quot   587      smtp server ehlo       smtp server starttls       smtp server ehlo       smtp server login  quot USERNAME DOMAIN quot   password      smtp server send message message  except Exception as e      print  quot Error   quot   str e   finally      if smtp server is not None          smtp server quit    If you want to use Port 465 you have to create an SMTP SSL object

User · Answer

Also if you want to do smtp auth with TLS as opposed to SSL then you just have to change the port  use 587  and do smtp starttls     This worked for me       smtp connect  YOUR MAIL SERVER   587  smtp ehlo   smtp starttls   smtp ehlo   smtp login  USERNAME DOMAIN    PASSWORD

User · Answer

Here s a working example for Python 3 x     usr bin env python3  from email message import EmailMessage from getpass import getpass from smtplib import SMTP SSL from sys import exit  smtp server    smtp gmail com  username    your email address gmail com  password   getpass  Enter Gmail password      sender    your email address gmail com  destination    recipient email address gmail com  subject    Sent from Python 3 x  content    Hello  This was sent to you via Python 3 x      Create a text plain message msg   EmailMessage   msg set content content   msg  Subject     subject msg  From     sender msg  To     destination  try      s   SMTP SSL smtp server      s login username  password      try          s send message msg      finally          s quit    except Exception as E      exit  Mail failed      format str E

User · Answer

following code is working fine for me   import smtplib  to    mkyong2002 yahoo com  gmail user    mkyong2002 gmail com  gmail pwd    yourpassword  smtpserver   smtplib SMTP  smtp gmail com  587  smtpserver ehlo   smtpserver starttls   smtpserver ehlo     extra characters to permit edit smtpserver login gmail user  gmail pwd  header    To     to     n     From      gmail user     n     Subject testing  n  print header msg   header     n this is test msg from mkyong com  n n  smtpserver sendmail gmail user  to  msg  print  done   smtpserver quit     Ref  http   www mkyong com python how-do-send-email-in-python-via-smtplib

User · Answer

you can do like that  import smtplib from email mime text import MIMEText from email header import Header   server   smtplib SMTP  mail servername com   25  server ehlo   server starttls    server login  username    password   from    me servername com  to    mygfriend servername com  body    That A Message For My Girl Friend For tell Him If We will go to eat Something This Nigth  subject    Invite to A Diner  msg   MIMEText body  plain   utf-8   msg  Subject     Header subject   utf-8   msg  From     Header from   utf-8   msg  To     Header to   utf-8   message   msg as string   server sendmail from  to  message

User · Answer

You should make sure you format the date in the correct format - RFC2822

User · Answer

Make sure you don t have any firewalls blocking SMTP   The first time I tried to send an email  it was blocked both by Windows Firewall and McAfee - took forever to find them both

User · Answer

following code is working fine for me   import smtplib  to    mkyong2002 yahoo com  gmail user    mkyong2002 gmail com  gmail pwd    yourpassword  smtpserver   smtplib SMTP  smtp gmail com  587  smtpserver ehlo   smtpserver starttls   smtpserver ehlo     extra characters to permit edit smtpserver login gmail user  gmail pwd  header    To     to     n     From      gmail user     n     Subject testing  n  print header msg   header     n this is test msg from mkyong com  n n  smtpserver sendmail gmail user  to  msg  print  done   smtpserver quit     Ref  http   www mkyong com python how-do-send-email-in-python-via-smtplib

User · Answer

The example code which i did for send mail using SMTP   import smtplib  ssl  smtp server    smtp gmail com  port   587    For starttls sender email    sender email  receiver email    receiver email  password     lt your password here gt   message       Subject  Hi there  This message is sent from Python         Create a secure SSL context context   ssl create default context      Try to log in to server and send email server   smtplib SMTP smtp server port   try      server ehlo     Can be omitted     server starttls context context    Secure the connection     server ehlo     Can be omitted     server login sender email  password      server sendmail sender email  receiver email  message  except Exception as e        Print any error messages to stdout     print e  finally      server quit

User · Answer

The script I use is quite similar  I post it here as an example of how to use the email   modules to generate MIME messages  so this script can be easily modified to attach pictures  etc   I rely on my ISP to add the date time header   My ISP requires me to use a secure smtp connection to send mail  I rely on the smtplib module  downloadable at http   www1 cs columbia edu  db2501 ssmtplib py   As in your script  the username and password   given dummy values below   used to authenticate on the SMTP server  are in plain text in the source  This is a security weakness  but the best alternative depends on how careful you need  want   to be about protecting these                                                usr local bin python   SMTPserver    smtp att yahoo com  sender        me my email domain net  destination     recipient her email domain com    USERNAME    USER NAME FOR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER  PASSWORD    PASSWORD INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER     typical values for text subtype are plain  html  xml text subtype    plain    content      Test message      subject  Sent from Python   import sys import os import re  from smtplib import SMTP SSL as SMTP         this invokes the secure SMTP protocol  port 465  uses SSL    from smtplib import SMTP                    use this for standard SMTP protocol    port 25  no encryption     old version   from email MIMEText import MIMEText from email mime text import MIMEText  try      msg   MIMEText content  text subtype      msg  Subject          subject     msg  From       sender   some SMTP servers will do this automatically  not all      conn   SMTP SMTPserver      conn set debuglevel False      conn login USERNAME  PASSWORD      try          conn sendmail sender  destination  msg as string        finally          conn quit    except      sys exit   mail failed   s     CUSTOM ERROR      give an error message

User · Answer

The main gotcha I see is that you re not handling any errors   login   and  sendmail   both have documented exceptions that they can throw  and it seems like  connect   must have some way to indicate that it was unable to connect - probably an exception thrown by the underlying socket code

User · Answer

What about this    import smtplib  SERVER    localhost   FROM    sender example com  TO     user example com     must be a list  SUBJECT    Hello    TEXT    This message was sent with Python s smtplib      Prepare actual message  message        From   s To   s Subject   s   s        FROM       join TO   SUBJECT  TEXT     Send the mail  server   smtplib SMTP SERVER  server sendmail FROM  TO  message  server quit

User · Answer

You should make sure you format the date in the correct format - RFC2822

User · Answer

The main gotcha I see is that you re not handling any errors   login   and  sendmail   both have documented exceptions that they can throw  and it seems like  connect   must have some way to indicate that it was unable to connect - probably an exception thrown by the underlying socket code

User · Answer

See all those lenghty answers  Please allow me to self promote by doing it all in a couple of lines   Import and Connect   import yagmail yag   yagmail SMTP  john doe net   host    YOUR MAIL SERVER   port   26    Then it is just a one-liner   yag send  foo bar com    hello    Hello nThis is a mail from your server n nBye n     It will actually close when it goes out of scope  or can be closed manually   Furthermore  it will allow you to register your username in your keyring such that you do not have to write out your password in your script  it really bothered me prior to writing yagmail    For the package installation  tips and tricks please look at git or pip  available for both Python 2 and 3

User · Answer

See all those lenghty answers  Please allow me to self promote by doing it all in a couple of lines   Import and Connect   import yagmail yag   yagmail SMTP  john doe net   host    YOUR MAIL SERVER   port   26    Then it is just a one-liner   yag send  foo bar com    hello    Hello nThis is a mail from your server n nBye n     It will actually close when it goes out of scope  or can be closed manually   Furthermore  it will allow you to register your username in your keyring such that you do not have to write out your password in your script  it really bothered me prior to writing yagmail    For the package installation  tips and tricks please look at git or pip  available for both Python 2 and 3

User · Answer

The script I use is quite similar  I post it here as an example of how to use the email   modules to generate MIME messages  so this script can be easily modified to attach pictures  etc   I rely on my ISP to add the date time header   My ISP requires me to use a secure smtp connection to send mail  I rely on the smtplib module  downloadable at http   www1 cs columbia edu  db2501 ssmtplib py   As in your script  the username and password   given dummy values below   used to authenticate on the SMTP server  are in plain text in the source  This is a security weakness  but the best alternative depends on how careful you need  want   to be about protecting these                                                usr local bin python   SMTPserver    smtp att yahoo com  sender        me my email domain net  destination     recipient her email domain com    USERNAME    USER NAME FOR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER  PASSWORD    PASSWORD INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER     typical values for text subtype are plain  html  xml text subtype    plain    content      Test message      subject  Sent from Python   import sys import os import re  from smtplib import SMTP SSL as SMTP         this invokes the secure SMTP protocol  port 465  uses SSL    from smtplib import SMTP                    use this for standard SMTP protocol    port 25  no encryption     old version   from email MIMEText import MIMEText from email mime text import MIMEText  try      msg   MIMEText content  text subtype      msg  Subject          subject     msg  From       sender   some SMTP servers will do this automatically  not all      conn   SMTP SMTPserver      conn set debuglevel False      conn login USERNAME  PASSWORD      try          conn sendmail sender  destination  msg as string        finally          conn quit    except      sys exit   mail failed   s     CUSTOM ERROR      give an error message

User · Answer

The main gotcha I see is that you re not handling any errors   login   and  sendmail   both have documented exceptions that they can throw  and it seems like  connect   must have some way to indicate that it was unable to connect - probably an exception thrown by the underlying socket code

User · Answer

The method I commonly use   not much different but a little bit  import smtplib from email MIMEMultipart import MIMEMultipart from email MIMEText import MIMEText  msg   MIMEMultipart   msg  From      me gmail com  msg  To      you gmail com  msg  Subject      simple email in python  message    here is the email  msg attach MIMEText message    mailserver   smtplib SMTP  smtp gmail com  587    identify ourselves to smtp gmail client mailserver ehlo     secure our email with tls encryption mailserver starttls     re-identify ourselves as an encrypted connection mailserver ehlo   mailserver login  me gmail com    mypassword    mailserver sendmail  me gmail com   you gmail com  msg as string     mailserver quit     That s it

User · Answer

You should make sure you format the date in the correct format - RFC2822

User · Answer

Here s a working example for Python 3 x     usr bin env python3  from email message import EmailMessage from getpass import getpass from smtplib import SMTP SSL from sys import exit  smtp server    smtp gmail com  username    your email address gmail com  password   getpass  Enter Gmail password      sender    your email address gmail com  destination    recipient email address gmail com  subject    Sent from Python 3 x  content    Hello  This was sent to you via Python 3 x      Create a text plain message msg   EmailMessage   msg set content content   msg  Subject     subject msg  From     sender msg  To     destination  try      s   SMTP SSL smtp server      s login username  password      try          s send message msg      finally          s quit    except Exception as E      exit  Mail failed      format str E

User · Answer

Also if you want to do smtp auth with TLS as opposed to SSL then you just have to change the port  use 587  and do smtp starttls     This worked for me       smtp connect  YOUR MAIL SERVER   587  smtp ehlo   smtp starttls   smtp ehlo   smtp login  USERNAME DOMAIN    PASSWORD

User · Answer

You should make sure you format the date in the correct format - RFC2822

User · Answer

Make sure you don t have any firewalls blocking SMTP   The first time I tried to send an email  it was blocked both by Windows Firewall and McAfee - took forever to find them both

User · Answer

Make sure you don t have any firewalls blocking SMTP   The first time I tried to send an email  it was blocked both by Windows Firewall and McAfee - took forever to find them both

User · Answer

The script I use is quite similar  I post it here as an example of how to use the email   modules to generate MIME messages  so this script can be easily modified to attach pictures  etc   I rely on my ISP to add the date time header   My ISP requires me to use a secure smtp connection to send mail  I rely on the smtplib module  downloadable at http   www1 cs columbia edu  db2501 ssmtplib py   As in your script  the username and password   given dummy values below   used to authenticate on the SMTP server  are in plain text in the source  This is a security weakness  but the best alternative depends on how careful you need  want   to be about protecting these                                                usr local bin python   SMTPserver    smtp att yahoo com  sender        me my email domain net  destination     recipient her email domain com    USERNAME    USER NAME FOR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER  PASSWORD    PASSWORD INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER     typical values for text subtype are plain  html  xml text subtype    plain    content      Test message      subject  Sent from Python   import sys import os import re  from smtplib import SMTP SSL as SMTP         this invokes the secure SMTP protocol  port 465  uses SSL    from smtplib import SMTP                    use this for standard SMTP protocol    port 25  no encryption     old version   from email MIMEText import MIMEText from email mime text import MIMEText  try      msg   MIMEText content  text subtype      msg  Subject          subject     msg  From       sender   some SMTP servers will do this automatically  not all      conn   SMTP SMTPserver      conn set debuglevel False      conn login USERNAME  PASSWORD      try          conn sendmail sender  destination  msg as string        finally          conn quit    except      sys exit   mail failed   s     CUSTOM ERROR      give an error message

User · Answer

Also if you want to do smtp auth with TLS as opposed to SSL then you just have to change the port  use 587  and do smtp starttls     This worked for me       smtp connect  YOUR MAIL SERVER   587  smtp ehlo   smtp starttls   smtp ehlo   smtp login  USERNAME DOMAIN    PASSWORD

User · Answer

Based on this example I made following function   import smtplib from email mime multipart import MIMEMultipart from email mime text import MIMEText  def send email host  port  user  pwd  recipients  subject  body  html None  from  None           copied and adapted from         https   stackoverflow com questions 10147455 how-to-send-an-email-with-gmail-as-provider-using-python 12424439     returns None if all ok  but if problem then returns exception object              PORT LIST    25  587  465       FROM   from  if from  else user      TO   recipients if isinstance recipients   list  tuple   else  recipients      SUBJECT   subject     TEXT   body encode  utf8   if isinstance body  unicode  else body     HTML   html encode  utf8   if isinstance html  unicode  else html      if not html            Prepare actual message         message      From   s nTo   s nSubject   s n n s                FROM       join TO   SUBJECT  TEXT      else                    https   stackoverflow com questions 882712 sending-html-email-using-python 882770         msg   MIMEMultipart  alternative           msg  Subject     SUBJECT         msg  From     FROM         msg  To          join TO             Record the MIME types of both parts - text plain and text html            utf-8 - gt  https   stackoverflow com questions 5910104 python-how-to-send-utf-8-e-mail 5910530         part1   MIMEText TEXT   plain    utf-8           part2   MIMEText HTML   html    utf-8              Attach parts into message container            According to RFC 2046  the last part of a multipart message  in this case           the HTML message  is best and preferred          msg attach part1          msg attach part2           message   msg as string         try          if port not in PORT LIST               raise Exception  Port  s not one of  s     port  PORT LIST            if port in  465                server   smtplib SMTP SSL host  port          else              server   smtplib SMTP host  port             optional         server ehlo            if port in  587                 server starttls            server login user  pwd          server sendmail FROM  TO  message          server close             logger info  SENT EMAIL to  s   s     recipients  subject       except Exception  ex          return ex      return None   if you pass only body then plain text mail will be sent  but if you pass html argument along with body argument  html email will be sent  with fallback to text content for email clients that don t support html mime types    Example usage   ex   send email        host           smtp gmail com        port          465   OK       port          587   OK       user           xxx gmail com        pwd            xxx        from           xxx gmail com        recipients      yyy gmail com         subject        Test from python        body           Test from python - body        if ex       print  Mail sending failed   s    ex  else      print  OK - mail sent    Btw  If you want to use gmail as testing or production SMTP server   enable temp or permanent access to less secured apps    login to google mail account go to  https   myaccount google com lesssecureapps enable send email using this function or similar  recommended  go to  https   myaccount google com lesssecureapps  recommended  disable

User · Answer

Or import smtplib   from email message import EmailMessage from getpass import getpass   password   getpass    message   EmailMessage   message set content  Message content here   message  Subject      Your subject here  message  From      quot USERNAME DOMAIN quot  message  To      quot you mail com quot   try      smtp server   None     smtp server   smtplib SMTP  quot YOUR MAIL SERVER quot   587      smtp server ehlo       smtp server starttls       smtp server ehlo       smtp server login  quot USERNAME DOMAIN quot   password      smtp server send message message  except Exception as e      print  quot Error   quot   str e   finally      if smtp server is not None          smtp server quit    If you want to use Port 465 you have to create an SMTP SSL object

User · Answer

The main gotcha I see is that you re not handling any errors   login   and  sendmail   both have documented exceptions that they can throw  and it seems like  connect   must have some way to indicate that it was unable to connect - probably an exception thrown by the underlying socket code

User · Answer

you can do like that  import smtplib from email mime text import MIMEText from email header import Header   server   smtplib SMTP  mail servername com   25  server ehlo   server starttls    server login  username    password   from    me servername com  to    mygfriend servername com  body    That A Message For My Girl Friend For tell Him If We will go to eat Something This Nigth  subject    Invite to A Diner  msg   MIMEText body  plain   utf-8   msg  Subject     Header subject   utf-8   msg  From     Header from   utf-8   msg  To     Header to   utf-8   message   msg as string   server sendmail from  to  message

User · Answer

Based on this example I made following function   import smtplib from email mime multipart import MIMEMultipart from email mime text import MIMEText  def send email host  port  user  pwd  recipients  subject  body  html None  from  None           copied and adapted from         https   stackoverflow com questions 10147455 how-to-send-an-email-with-gmail-as-provider-using-python 12424439     returns None if all ok  but if problem then returns exception object              PORT LIST    25  587  465       FROM   from  if from  else user      TO   recipients if isinstance recipients   list  tuple   else  recipients      SUBJECT   subject     TEXT   body encode  utf8   if isinstance body  unicode  else body     HTML   html encode  utf8   if isinstance html  unicode  else html      if not html            Prepare actual message         message      From   s nTo   s nSubject   s n n s                FROM       join TO   SUBJECT  TEXT      else                    https   stackoverflow com questions 882712 sending-html-email-using-python 882770         msg   MIMEMultipart  alternative           msg  Subject     SUBJECT         msg  From     FROM         msg  To          join TO             Record the MIME types of both parts - text plain and text html            utf-8 - gt  https   stackoverflow com questions 5910104 python-how-to-send-utf-8-e-mail 5910530         part1   MIMEText TEXT   plain    utf-8           part2   MIMEText HTML   html    utf-8              Attach parts into message container            According to RFC 2046  the last part of a multipart message  in this case           the HTML message  is best and preferred          msg attach part1          msg attach part2           message   msg as string         try          if port not in PORT LIST               raise Exception  Port  s not one of  s     port  PORT LIST            if port in  465                server   smtplib SMTP SSL host  port          else              server   smtplib SMTP host  port             optional         server ehlo            if port in  587                 server starttls            server login user  pwd          server sendmail FROM  TO  message          server close             logger info  SENT EMAIL to  s   s     recipients  subject       except Exception  ex          return ex      return None   if you pass only body then plain text mail will be sent  but if you pass html argument along with body argument  html email will be sent  with fallback to text content for email clients that don t support html mime types    Example usage   ex   send email        host           smtp gmail com        port          465   OK       port          587   OK       user           xxx gmail com        pwd            xxx        from           xxx gmail com        recipients      yyy gmail com         subject        Test from python        body           Test from python - body        if ex       print  Mail sending failed   s    ex  else      print  OK - mail sent    Btw  If you want to use gmail as testing or production SMTP server   enable temp or permanent access to less secured apps    login to google mail account go to  https   myaccount google com lesssecureapps enable send email using this function or similar  recommended  go to  https   myaccount google com lesssecureapps  recommended  disable

User · Answer

The method I commonly use   not much different but a little bit  import smtplib from email MIMEMultipart import MIMEMultipart from email MIMEText import MIMEText  msg   MIMEMultipart   msg  From      me gmail com  msg  To      you gmail com  msg  Subject      simple email in python  message    here is the email  msg attach MIMEText message    mailserver   smtplib SMTP  smtp gmail com  587    identify ourselves to smtp gmail client mailserver ehlo     secure our email with tls encryption mailserver starttls     re-identify ourselves as an encrypted connection mailserver ehlo   mailserver login  me gmail com    mypassword    mailserver sendmail  me gmail com   you gmail com  msg as string     mailserver quit     That s it

User · Answer

The example code which i did for send mail using SMTP   import smtplib  ssl  smtp server    smtp gmail com  port   587    For starttls sender email    sender email  receiver email    receiver email  password     lt your password here gt   message       Subject  Hi there  This message is sent from Python         Create a secure SSL context context   ssl create default context      Try to log in to server and send email server   smtplib SMTP smtp server port   try      server ehlo     Can be omitted     server starttls context context    Secure the connection     server ehlo     Can be omitted     server login sender email  password      server sendmail sender email  receiver email  message  except Exception as e        Print any error messages to stdout     print e  finally      server quit

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