Site icon DataFlair

How to Send Emails with Python

DataFlair Team
python send email project

Python course with 57 real-time projects - Learn Python

We all send and receive multiple emails every day. When it comes to personal mail, it does not seem much tiresome. But when it comes to sending multiple emails like sending mail when users sign up’s etc., would be tiring when done manually. This is where coding helps you by automating this task of sending emails. In this article, we will be learning to sending emails with different options like formatting, attachments, etc with python. So, let’s get started.

What is SMTP Server?

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an application layer protocol in the OSI model that lets a user send mail to another person. At the sender’s end it used SMTP connection and at the receiver, this mail is retrieved using protocols POP (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). The following figure shows the working of SMTP server.

Before going to the coding part, let’s see some of the advantages and disadvantages of using SMTP.

Pros of using SMTP

Cons of using SMTP

Project Prerequisites

First of all it is a must for the developer to have a mail account for sending a mail.

Also, the Python library smtpib will be used to send the mails in this article and connect to the mail server.

Also, before running the code to login or send mail through Python it is important to give the code access to connect to mail and send emails. This can be done by going to the site https://myaccount.google.com on your browser logged in with the mail you are using to send the mail.

Starting connection

Using SMTP_SSL()

One way of connecting to start sending mails through Python is to use SSL connection. Here we create a secure SSL connection and then log in using appropriate credentials.

import smtplib, ssl

port = 465  # For SSL connection

# Create a secure SSL context
context = ssl.create_default_context()

with smtplib.SMTP_SSL("smtp.gmail.com", port, context=context) as server:
    server.login("your gmail id”, “password”)
    # TODO: Send email here

Here,

By default the port is zero, if not specified.SMTP_SSL() used standard port for SMTP over SSL (port 465).
smtplib.SMTP_SSL() as server: makes sure that the connection is automatically closed at the end. If port is zero, or not specified.

You can also use input() or getpass() methods to give the password at the runtime.

Using .starttls()

Another method of settingup the connection is by usng starttls().

import smtplib, ssl

sender_add='from_address@gmail.com' #the sender's mail id
receiver_add='to_address@gmail.com' #the receiver's mail id
password='password' #password to log in

# Try to log in to server and send email
try:
    smtp_server=smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com",587)
    smtp_server.ehlo() #setting up the ESMTP protocol

    smtp_server.starttls() #setting up the TLS connection
    smtp_server.ehlo() #calling the ehlo() as encryption happens on calling startttls()

    smtp_server.login(sender_add,password) #logging into the sender's email id

except Exception as e:
    # Print any error message
    print(e)
finally:
    server.quit()

In the above code,

Sending a Plain Text Email

Now, let’s discuss the coding part, starting by sending an email with some text.

Using SMTP_SSL():

Let’s first see the SMTP_SSL() method to send plain text.

import smtplib, ssl

port = 465  # For SSL
smtp_server = "smtp.gmail.com"
sender_add='from_address@gmail.com' #the sender's mail id
receiver_add='to_address@gmail.com' #the receiver's mail id
password='password' #password to log in

msg_to_be_sent ='''
Hello, receiver!
Hope you are doing well.
Welcome to DataFlair!
'''

context = ssl.create_default_context()
with smtplib.SMTP_SSL(smtp_server, port, context=context) as server:
    server.login(sender_add, password)
    server.sendmail(sender_add, receiver_add, msg_to_be_sent )

Here,

Using .starttls()

import smtplib

sender_add='from_address@gmail.com' #the sender's mail id
receiver_add='to_address@gmail.com' #the receiver's mail id
password='password' #password to log in

 #creating the SMTP server object with SMPT server address and port number
smtp_server=smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com",587)
smtp_server.ehlo() #setting up the ESMTP protocol

smtp_server.starttls() #setting up the TLS connection
smtp_server.ehlo() #calling the ehlo() as encryption happens on calling startttls()

smtp_server.login(sender_add,password) #logging into the sender's email id

msg_to_be_sent ='''
Hello, receiver!
Hope you are doing well.
Welcome to DataFlair!
'''

#sending the mail from specified and to mentioned email address and the message
smtp_server.sendmail(sender_add,receiver_add,msg_to_be_sent)
smtp_server.quit()#terminating the server

Here,

Sending Fancy Mails with HTML

Sometimes we try to format the content we send with spaces, adding links, etc. This can be done again in coding with the help of HTML. Also, subject is an important part of an email. Here we use the MIMEMultipart() object.

import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart

sender_add='from_address@gmail.com' #the sender's mail id
receiver_add='to_address@gmail.com' #the receiver's mail id
password='password' #password to log in

 #creating the SMTP server object with SMPT server address and port number
smtp_server=smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com",587)
smtp_server.ehlo() #setting up the ESMTP protocol

body = MIMEMultipart("alternative")
body["Subject"] = "Multiple messages"
body["From"] = sender_add
body["To"] = receiver_add

msg ='''
Hello, receiver!
Hope you are doing well.
Welcome to DataFlair!
'''

html_msg="""<html>
  <body>
    <p>Hello, receiver!<br>
       Hope you are doing well.<br>
       Welcome to <a href="https://data-flair.training">DataFlair</a> !
    </p>
  </body>
</html>"""

# Turn the above information into plain/html MIMEText objects
part1 = MIMEText(msg, "plain")
part2 = MIMEText(html_msg, "html")

# Add HTML/plain-text parts to MIMEMultipart message
# The email client will try to render the last part first
body.attach(part1)
body.attach(part2)


smtp_server.starttls() #setting up the TLS connection
smtp_server.ehlo() #calling the ehlo() as encryption happens on calling startttls()

smtp_server.login(sender_add,password) #logging into the sender's email id
#sending the mail from specified and to mentioned email address and the message
smtp_server.sendmail(sender_add,receiver_add,body.as_string())
smtp_server.quit()#terminating the server

In the above code, we follow a similar procedure we followed above.

Sending Mail with an Attachment

Most of the mails have one/more attachment(s) like PDFs, images, etc. along with content. And this is what we will do now!

import email, smtplib, ssl
from email import encoders
from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

sender_add='from_address@gmail.com' #the sender's mail id
receiver_add='to_address@gmail.com' #the receiver's mail id
password='password' #password to log in

 #creating the SMTP server object with SMPT server address and port number
smtp_server=smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com",587)
smtp_server.ehlo() #setting up the ESMTP protocol

body = MIMEMultipart("alternative")
body["Subject"] = "Sending an Attachment"
body["From"] = sender_add
body["To"] = receiver_add

msg ='''
Hello, receiver!
We are sending an attachment from  DataFlair!
'''

# Turn the above information into plain/html MIMEText objects
part1 = MIMEText(msg, "plain")

# Add HTML/plain-text parts to MIMEMultipart message
# The email client will try to render the last part first
body.attach(part1)
filepath = r"python.jfif"

# Open PDF file in binary mode
with open(filepath, "rb") as attachment:
    # Add file as application/octet-stream
    # Email client can usually download this automatically as attachment
    file = MIMEBase("application", "octet-stream")
    file.set_payload(attachment.read())

# Encode file in ASCII characters to send by email    
encoders.encode_base64(file)

# Add header as key/value pair to attachment part
file.add_header(
    "Python Image",
    f"attachment; filename= {filepath}",
)

# Add attachment to message and convert message to string
body.attach(file)
text = body.as_string()

# Log in to server using secure context and send email
context = ssl.create_default_context()

smtp_server.starttls() #setting up the TLS connection
smtp_server.ehlo() #calling the ehlo() as encryption happens on calling startttls()

smtp_server.login(sender_add,password) #logging into the sender's email id
#sending the mail from specified and to mentioned email address and the message
smtp_server.sendmail(sender_add,receiver_add,body.as_string())
smtp_server.quit()#terminating the server

We again use the MIMEMultipart() object to combine the text and the file. Let’s look at the flow of the code to understand more:

Sending Multiple Mails

We also send mails to multiple people and it would obviously be hard to send the mails separately. And we will now learn to send multiple mails at a single shot!

import csv, smtplib, ssl

sender_add='from_address@gmail.com' #the sender's mail id
receiver_add='to_address@gmail.com' #the receiver's mail id
password='password' #password to log in


 #creating the SMTP server object with SMPT server address and port number
smtp_server=smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com",587)
smtp_server.ehlo() #setting up the ESMTP protocol

message = """Subject: Results

Hello {name}! Your grade for the exam is {grade}"""


context = ssl.create_default_context()

smtp_server.starttls() #setting up the TLS connection
smtp_server.ehlo() #calling the ehlo() as encryption happens on calling startttls()

smtp_server.login(sender_add,password) #logging into the sender's email id
#sending the mail from specified and to mentioned email address and the message mentioned in the csv
with open(r"C:\Users\DELL\Downloads\grades.csv") as file:
        reader = csv.reader(file)
        next(reader)  # Skip header row
        for name, email, grade in reader:
            smtp_server.sendmail(
                sender_add,
                email,
                message.format(name=name,grade=grade),
            )
smtp_server.quit()#terminating the server

Here,

API Way

Using APIs is another simple approach to send emails. This type of service can be free. Let’s see a coding example to make it clear.

import requests

def send_simple_email():
  return requests.post(
    "CREDENTIALS GIVEN BY MAILGUN",
    auth=("api", "CREDENTIALS GIVEN BY MAILGUN"),
    data={"from": " <your_email@gmail.com>",
      "to": "François <receiver_email@gmail.com>",
      "subject": "Subject",
      "text": "Hello! This is a test email from Dataflair."})


send_simple_email()

Yagmail

Python provides multiple libraries to send emails with simple code. Yagmail is one of them, which is specifically for gmails. Let’s look into this library by sending a mail with content and an attachment.

import yagmail
sender_add='from_address@gmail.com' #the sender's mail id
receiver_add='to_address@gmail.com' #the receiver's mail id
password='password' #password to log in

msg ='''
Hello, receiver!
We are sending an attachment from  DataFlair!
'''
filename = r"python.jfif"

yag = yagmail.SMTP(sender_add,password)
yag.send(
    to=receiver_add,
    subject="Yagmail from DataFlair",
    contents=msg,
    attachments=filename,
)

Seems to be a simpler code right! The yagmail can be installed using the below command:

pip install yagmail

Then

Transactional Email Services

If you are someone who is planning to send a large volume of emails, see email statistics, and want to ensure reliable delivery, then transactional email services is a best option. Although all of these services have paid plans for sending large volumes of emails, they also avail free plans to try them out.

Pros of transactional email services

Cons of transactional email services

Conclusion

We have learned to send secure emails using Python. We discussed setting up an SMTP connection, sending mail, formatting content, adding attachments, and sending multiple personalized emails. We also learned to use the yagmail library to send the mail. And then using transactional email services. Hope it was an informative article. Happy coding

Exit mobile version