I've just started learning Python and I'm trying to code a bot where it emails a HTML message along with a .docx (Microsoft Word) attachment. Here's my code and it works fine, but I'm confused with a few of the parameters.
import smtplib
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.application import MIMEApplication
import os
#Email Variables
myemail = "myemail@hotmail.com"
recipient = "recipientemail@hotmail.com"
#Specifying MIME variables to include in email header
mime_details = MIMEMultipart('mixed')
mime_details['Subject'] = "This is my email subject!"
mime_details['From'] = myemail
mime_details['To'] = recipient
#Creating body of message
html_body = """\
<html>\
<p>\
My email message!
</p>\
</html>\
"""
#Attaching File To Email
os.chdir('C:\\Users\Kyle\Desktop\')
openfile = open('testfile.docx', 'rb')
doc = MIMEApplication(openfile.read(), _subtype='vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document')
doc.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment', filename='My Content.docx')
mime_details.attach(doc)
openfile.close()
#Recording MIME types of email parts
htmlpart = MIMEText(html_body, _subtype='html')
#Attaching parts to message container
mime_details.attach(htmlpart)
#Sending message via SMTP server
s = smtplib.SMTP(host='smtp.live.com', port=587)
s.ehlo()
s.starttls()
s.login(myemail, 'password')
s.sendmail(myemail, recipient, mime_details.as_string())
s.quit()
I have a few questions regarding the code above, and I would greatly appreciate it if you can help me clear whatever confused thoughts I have regarding the modules above.
A) The add_header module
mime_details['Subject'] = "This is my email subject!"
mime_details['From'] = myemail
mime_details['To'] = recipient
As you can see from the snippet above, I clearly defined each header variable in the MIMEMultipart envelope. According to Python's docs, these values will be added to the header directly. I tried using the add_header() method directly as an alternative, something like:
mime_details.add_header(Subject = "This is my email subject!", To = recipient, From = myemail)
But it gave me errors. Any idea why?
B) At the last few lines of my code, I had to append a .as_string() to the payload I was sending. I tried taking it out but it gave me a TypeError: expected string or buffer.
The Python docs give me this:
as_string(unixfrom=False, maxheaderlen=0, policy=None)
Return the entire message flattened as a string.
I assume that I have to append this in every case? the mime_details object has two parts to it - the HTML message and the .docx file. Both will be converted to strings? What about image files?
C) When I open my file to attach, I read it in 'rb' mode.
Here's the code:
openfile = open('testfile.docx', 'rb')
I tried using 'r' but it raises an error. I've read up on this and 'rb' mode simply opens the file in binary. Why would it make sense to open a .docx file in binary mode? Am I to use 'rb' mode for ALL non.txt files?
D) Finally, I've seen some people use base64 encoding for attachments. I've searched around and a particularly popular script over here is below (from How to send email attachments with Python):
import smtplib, os
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.utils import COMMASPACE, formatdate
from email import encoders
def send_mail( send_from, send_to, subject, text, files=[], server="localhost", port=587, username='', password='', isTls=True):
msg = MIMEMultipart()
msg['From'] = send_from
msg['To'] = COMMASPACE.join(send_to)
msg['Date'] = formatdate(localtime = True)
msg['Subject'] = subject
msg.attach( MIMEText(text) )
for f in files:
part = MIMEBase('application', "octet-stream")
part.set_payload( open(f,"rb").read() )
encoders.encode_base64(part)
part.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="{0}"'.format(os.path.basename(f)))
msg.attach(part)
smtp = smtplib.SMTP(server, port)
if isTls: smtp.starttls()
smtp.login(username,password)
smtp.sendmail(send_from, send_to, msg.as_string())
smtp.quit()
Why does content need to be encoded in base64? Does this apply to all files and is a general thing to be added, or can I ignore this? What situations am I to invoke that method?
Finally, being a noob at Python, some of my code above may be redundant\badly structured. If you have any tips\suggestions on how I can improve my simply script, please do let me know.
Thank you!
