How to send emails from my Android application?

Question

I am developing an application in Android. I don't know how to send an email from the application?

Answer 1

The best (and easiest) way is to use an Intent:

Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
i.setType("message/rfc822");
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL  , new String[]{"recipient@example.com"});
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "subject of email");
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT   , "body of email");
try {
    startActivity(Intent.createChooser(i, "Send mail..."));
} catch (android.content.ActivityNotFoundException ex) {
    Toast.makeText(MyActivity.this, "There are no email clients installed.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

Otherwise you'll have to write your own client.

RFC822 is the standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages. See https://w3.org/Protocols/rfc822.

Answer 2

Use .setType("message/rfc822") or the chooser will show you all of the (many) applications that support the send intent.

Answer 3

I've been using this since long time ago and it seems good, no non-email apps showing up. Just another way to send a send email intent:

Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO); // it's not ACTION_SEND
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Subject of email");
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Body of email");
intent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:default@example.com")); // or just "mailto:" for blank
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK); // this will make such that when user returns to your app, your app is displayed, instead of the email app.
startActivity(intent);

Answer 4

I was using something along the lines of the currently accepted answer in order to send emails with an attached binary error log file. GMail and K-9 send it just fine and it also arrives fine on my mail server. The only problem was my mail client of choice Thunderbird which had troubles with opening / saving the attached log file. In fact it simply didn't save the file at all without complaining.

I took a look at one of these mail's source codes and noticed that the log file attachment had (understandably) the mime type message/rfc822. Of course that attachment is not an attached email. But Thunderbird cannot cope with that tiny error gracefully. So that was kind of a bummer.

After a bit of research and experimenting I came up with the following solution:

public Intent createEmailOnlyChooserIntent(Intent source,
    CharSequence chooserTitle) {
    Stack<Intent> intents = new Stack<Intent>();
    Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, Uri.fromParts("mailto",
            "info@example.com", null));
    List<ResolveInfo> activities = getPackageManager()
            .queryIntentActivities(i, 0);

    for(ResolveInfo ri : activities) {
        Intent target = new Intent(source);
        target.setPackage(ri.activityInfo.packageName);
        intents.add(target);
    }

    if(!intents.isEmpty()) {
        Intent chooserIntent = Intent.createChooser(intents.remove(0),
                chooserTitle);
        chooserIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_INITIAL_INTENTS,
                intents.toArray(new Parcelable[intents.size()]));

        return chooserIntent;
    } else {
        return Intent.createChooser(source, chooserTitle);
    }
}

It can be used as follows:

Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
i.setType("*/*");
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, Uri.fromFile(crashLogFile));
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[] {
    ANDROID_SUPPORT_EMAIL
});
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Crash report");
i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Some crash report details");

startActivity(createEmailOnlyChooserIntent(i, "Send via email"));

As you can see, the createEmailOnlyChooserIntent method can be easily fed with the correct intent and the correct mime type.

It then goes through the list of available activities that respond to an ACTION_SENDTO mailto protocol intent (which are email apps only) and constructs a chooser based on that list of activities and the original ACTION_SEND intent with the correct mime type.

Another advantage is that Skype is not listed anymore (which happens to respond to the rfc822 mime type).

Answer 5

To JUST LET EMAIL APPS to resolve your intent you need to specify ACTION_SENDTO as Action and mailto as Data.

private void sendEmail(){

    Intent emailIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
    emailIntent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:" + "recipient@example.com")); // You can use "mailto:" if you don't know the address beforehand.
    emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "My email's subject");
    emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "My email's body");
    
    try {
        startActivity(Intent.createChooser(emailIntent, "Send email using..."));
    } catch (android.content.ActivityNotFoundException ex) {
        Toast.makeText(Activity.this, "No email clients installed.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }

}

Answer 6

The solution to this is simple: the android documentation explains it.

(https://developer.android.com/guide/components/intents-common.html#Email)

The most important is the flag: it is ACTION_SENDTO, and not ACTION_SEND

The other important line is

intent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:")); ***// only email apps should handle this***

By the way, if you send an empty Extra, the if() at the end won't work and the app won't launch the email client.

According to Android documentation. If you want to ensure that your intent is handled only by an email app (and not other text messaging or social apps), then use the ACTION_SENDTO action and include the "mailto:" data scheme. For example:

public void composeEmail(String[] addresses, String subject) {
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
    intent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:")); // only email apps should handle this
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, addresses);
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
    if (intent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager()) != null) {
        startActivity(intent);
    }
}

Answer 7

The strategy of using .setType("message/rfc822") or ACTION_SEND seems to also match apps that aren't email clients, such as Android Beam and Bluetooth.

Using ACTION_SENDTO and a mailto: URI seems to work perfectly, and is recommended in the developer documentation. However, if you do this on the official emulators and there aren't any email accounts set up (or there aren't any mail clients), you get the following error:

Unsupported action

That action is not currently supported.

As shown below:

It turns out that the emulators resolve the intent to an activity called com.android.fallback.Fallback, which displays the above message. Apparently this is by design.

If you want your app to circumvent this so it also works correctly on the official emulators, you can check for it before trying to send the email:

private void sendEmail() {
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO)
        .setData(new Uri.Builder().scheme("mailto").build())
        .putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[]{ "John Smith <johnsmith@yourdomain.com>" })
        .putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Email subject")
        .putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Email body")
    ;

    ComponentName emailApp = intent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager());
    ComponentName unsupportedAction = ComponentName.unflattenFromString("com.android.fallback/.Fallback");
    if (emailApp != null && !emailApp.equals(unsupportedAction))
        try {
            // Needed to customise the chooser dialog title since it might default to "Share with"
            // Note that the chooser will still be skipped if only one app is matched
            Intent chooser = Intent.createChooser(intent, "Send email with");
            startActivity(chooser);
            return;
        }
        catch (ActivityNotFoundException ignored) {
        }

    Toast
        .makeText(this, "Couldn't find an email app and account", Toast.LENGTH_LONG)
        .show();
}

Find more info in the developer documentation.

Answer 8

Sending email can be done with Intents which will require no configuration. But then it will require user interaction and the layout will be a bit restricted.

Build and sending a more complex email without user interaction entails building your own client. The first thing is that the Sun Java API for email are unavailable. I have had success leveraging the Apache Mime4j library to build email. All based on the docs at nilvec.

Answer 9

Here is the sample working code which opens mail application in android device and auto-filled with To address and Subject in the composing mail.

protected void sendEmail() {
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
    intent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:feedback@gmail.com"));
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Feedback");
    if (intent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager()) != null) {
        startActivity(intent);
    }
}

Answer 10

I use the below code in my apps. This shows exactly email client apps, such as Gmail.

    Intent contactIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, Uri.fromParts("mailto", getString(R.string.email_to), null));
    contactIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, getString(R.string.email_subject));
    startActivity(Intent.createChooser(contactIntent, getString(R.string.email_chooser)));

Answer 11

This will show you only the email clients (as well as PayPal for some unknown reason)

 public void composeEmail() {

    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
    intent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:"));
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[]{"hi@example.com"});
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Subject");
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Body");
    try {
        startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Send mail..."));
    } catch (android.content.ActivityNotFoundException ex) {
        Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "There are no email clients installed.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }
}

Answer 12

This is how I did it. Nice and simple.

String emailUrl = "mailto:email@example.com?subject=Subject Text&body=Body Text";
        Intent request = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
        request.setData(Uri.parse(emailUrl));
        startActivity(request);

Answer 13

I used this code to send mail by launching default mail app compose section directly.

    Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
    i.setType("message/rfc822"); 
    i.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:"));
    i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL  , new String[]{"test@gmail.com"});
    i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Subject");
    i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT   , "body of email");
    try {
        startActivity(Intent.createChooser(i, "Send mail..."));
    } catch (android.content.ActivityNotFoundException ex) {
        Toast.makeText(this, "There are no email clients installed.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }

Answer 14

This function first direct intent gmail for sending email, if gmail is not found then promote intent chooser. I used this function in many commercial app and it's working fine. Hope it will help you:

public static void sentEmail(Context mContext, String[] addresses, String subject, String body) {

    try {
        Intent sendIntentGmail = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
        sendIntentGmail.setType("plain/text");
        sendIntentGmail.setData(Uri.parse(TextUtils.join(",", addresses)));
        sendIntentGmail.setClassName("com.google.android.gm", "com.google.android.gm.ComposeActivityGmail");
        sendIntentGmail.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, addresses);
        if (subject != null) sendIntentGmail.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
        if (body != null) sendIntentGmail.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, body);
        mContext.startActivity(sendIntentGmail);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        //When Gmail App is not installed or disable
        Intent sendIntentIfGmailFail = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
        sendIntentIfGmailFail.setType("*/*");
        sendIntentIfGmailFail.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, addresses);
        if (subject != null) sendIntentIfGmailFail.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
        if (body != null) sendIntentIfGmailFail.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, body);
        if (sendIntentIfGmailFail.resolveActivity(mContext.getPackageManager()) != null) {
            mContext.startActivity(sendIntentIfGmailFail);
        }
    }
}

Answer 15

This is the most clean way of sending email on Android.

 val intent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO).apply {
    data = Uri.parse("mailto:")
    putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, arrayOf("email@example.com"))
    putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Subject")
    putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Email body")
}
if (intent.resolveActivity(packageManager) != null) {
    startActivity(intent)
}

You also need to specify in your manifest (outside your application tag) the query for applications that handle email (mailto)

<queries>
    <intent>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.SENDTO" />
        <data android:scheme="mailto" />
    </intent>
</queries>

If you need to send HTML text in the email body, please replace the "Email body" with your email string, something like this (please beware that Html.fromHtml maybe deprecated this was only for show you how to do it)

Html.fromHtml(
    StringBuilder().append("<b>Hello world</b>").toString()
)

Answer 16

simple try this one

 public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);

    buttonSend = (Button) findViewById(R.id.buttonSend);
    textTo = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editTextTo);
    textSubject = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editTextSubject);
    textMessage = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editTextMessage);

    buttonSend.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {

            String to = textTo.getText().toString();
            String subject = textSubject.getText().toString();
            String message = textMessage.getText().toString();

            Intent email = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
            email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[] { to });
            // email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_CC, new String[]{ to});
            // email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_BCC, new String[]{to});
            email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
            email.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, message);

            // need this to prompts email client only
            email.setType("message/rfc822");

            startActivity(Intent.createChooser(email, "Choose an Email client :"));

        }
    });
}

Answer 17

Other solution can be

Intent emailIntent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_SEND);
emailIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
emailIntent.setType("plain/text");
emailIntent.setClassName("com.google.android.gm", "com.google.android.gm.ComposeActivityGmail");
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, new String[]{"someone@gmail.com"});
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Yo");
emailIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Hi");
startActivity(emailIntent);

Assuming most of the android device has GMail app already installed.

Answer 18

Use this for send email...

boolean success = EmailIntentBuilder.from(activity)
    .to("support@example.org")
    .cc("developer@example.org")
    .subject("Error report")
    .body(buildErrorReport())
    .start();

use build gradle :

compile 'de.cketti.mailto:email-intent-builder:1.0.0'

Answer 19

 Intent emailIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, Uri.fromParts(
            "mailto","ebgsoldier@gmail.com", null));
    emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Forgot Password");
    emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "this is a text ");
    startActivity(Intent.createChooser(emailIntent, "Send email..."));

Answer 20

This method work for me. It open Gmail app (if installed) and set mailto.

public void openGmail(Activity activity) {
    Intent emailIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
    emailIntent.setType("text/plain");
    emailIntent.setType("message/rfc822");
    emailIntent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:"+activity.getString(R.string.mail_to)));
    emailIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, activity.getString(R.string.app_name) + " - info ");
    final PackageManager pm = activity.getPackageManager();
    final List<ResolveInfo> matches = pm.queryIntentActivities(emailIntent, 0);
    ResolveInfo best = null;
    for (final ResolveInfo info : matches)
        if (info.activityInfo.packageName.endsWith(".gm") || info.activityInfo.name.toLowerCase().contains("gmail"))
            best = info;
    if (best != null)
        emailIntent.setClassName(best.activityInfo.packageName, best.activityInfo.name);
    activity.startActivity(emailIntent);
}

Answer 21

/**
 * Will start the chosen Email app
 *
 * @param context    current component context.
 * @param emails     Emails you would like to send to.
 * @param subject    The subject that will be used in the Email app.
 * @param forceGmail True - if you want to open Gmail app, False otherwise. If the Gmail
 *                   app is not installed on this device a chooser will be shown.
 */
public static void sendEmail(Context context, String[] emails, String subject, boolean forceGmail) {

    Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
    i.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:"));
    i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, emails);
    i.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
    if (forceGmail && isPackageInstalled(context, "com.google.android.gm")) {
        i.setPackage("com.google.android.gm");
        i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
        context.startActivity(i);
    } else {
        try {
            context.startActivity(Intent.createChooser(i, "Send mail..."));
        } catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
            Toast.makeText(context, "No email app is installed on your device...", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        }
    }
}

/**
 * Check if the given app is installed on this devuice.
 *
 * @param context     current component context.
 * @param packageName The package name you would like to check.
 * @return True if this package exist, otherwise False.
 */
public static boolean isPackageInstalled(@NonNull Context context, @NonNull String packageName) {
    PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
    if (pm != null) {
        try {
            pm.getPackageInfo(packageName, 0);
            return true;
        } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    return false;
}

Answer 22

Try this:

String mailto = "mailto:bob@example.org" +
    "?cc=" + "alice@example.com" +
    "&subject=" + Uri.encode(subject) +
    "&body=" + Uri.encode(bodyText);

Intent emailIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
emailIntent.setData(Uri.parse(mailto));

try {
    startActivity(emailIntent);
} catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
    //TODO: Handle case where no email app is available
}

The above code will open the users favourite email client prefilled with the email ready to send.

Source

Answer 23

Kotlin version which only shows Email clients (no contacts etc.):

    with(Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND)) {
        type = "message/rfc822"
        data = Uri.parse("mailto:")
        putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, arrayOf("user@example.com"))
        putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT,"YOUR SUBJECT")
        putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "YOUR BODY")
        try {
            startActivity(Intent.createChooser(this, "Send Email with"))
        } catch (ex: ActivityNotFoundException) {
            // No email clients found, might show Toast here
        }
    }

Answer 24

The code below works on Android 10 devices and higher. It also sets the subject, body and recipient(To).

val uri = Uri.parse("mailto:$EMAIL")
                .buildUpon()
                .appendQueryParameter("subject", "App Feedback")
                .appendQueryParameter("body", "Body Text")
                .appendQueryParameter("to", EMAIL)
                .build()

            val emailIntent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, uri)

            startActivity(Intent.createChooser(emailIntent, "Select app"))

Answer 25

Filtering for 'real' E-Mail Apps is still an issue today. As many people mentioned above, other apps nowadays also report to support the mime-type "message/rfc822". Therefore, this mime-type is not suitable any more to filter for a real E-Mail App.

If you want to send a simple text mail, it is enough to use the the ACTION_SENDTO intent action with the appropriate data type like so:

Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO);
intent.setData(Uri.parse("mailto:"));
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, recipients);
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, text);
Intent chooser = Intent.createChooser(intent, "Send Mail");
context.startActivity(chooser);

This will filter all available apps for those that support the 'mailto' protocol, which is much more suitable for the purpose of sending an E-mail.

But sadly things become complicated, if you want to send a mail with (multiple) attachments. The ACTION_SENDTO action does not support the EXTRA_STREAM extra on the intent. If you want to use that, you must use the ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE action, which does not work together with the the data type Uri.parse("mailto:").

For now I found a solution, which consists of the following steps:

• Declare that your App wants to query Apps on the device, that support the mailto protocol (important for all Apps since Android 11)
• Actually query all Apps, that support the mailto protocol
• For each supporting App: Build the intent that you actually want to launch, aiming for that single App
• Build the App chooser and launch it

And this is how it looks in code:

Add this to the AndroidManifest:

<queries>
    <intent>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.SENDTO" />
        <data android:scheme="mailto" />
    </intent>
</queries>

This is the Java code:

/* Query all Apps that support the 'mailto' protocol */
PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
Intent emailCheckerIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, Uri.parse("mailto:"));
List<ResolveInfo> emailApps = pm.queryIntentActivities(emailCheckerIntent, PackageManager.MATCH_DEFAULT_ONLY);

/* For each supporting App: Build an intent with the desired values */
List<Intent> intentList = new ArrayList<>();
for (ResolveInfo resolveInfo : emailApps) {
    String packageName = resolveInfo.activityInfo.packageName;
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE);
    intent.setPackage(packageName);
    intent.setComponent(new ComponentName(packageName, resolveInfo.activityInfo.name));
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, recipients);
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, subject);
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, text);
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, attachmentUris);
    intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION); //IMPORTANT to give the E-Mail App access to your attached files
                
    intentList.add(intent);
}

/* Create a chooser consisting of the queried apps only */
Intent chooser = Intent.createChooser(intentList.remove(intentList.size() - 1), "Send Mail");
Intent[] extraIntents = intentList.toArray(new Intent[0]);
chooser.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_INITIAL_INTENTS, extraIntents);
context.startActivity(chooser);

Note: If the itentList only has one item, Android will automatically skip the chooser and run the only App automatically.

Answer 26

import androidx.core.app.ShareCompat
import androidx.core.content.IntentCompat

ShareCompat.IntentBuilder(this)
                .setType("message/rfc822")
                .setEmailTo(arrayOf(email))
                .setStream(uri)
                .setSubject(subject)
                .setText(message + emailMessage)
                .startChooser()