Sending email with Python and Gmail SMTP server doesn't work with attachment

Question

I'm trying send email with a PDF attached. I have defined the next function:

def mail(to, subject, text, attach):
    gmail_user = "email@gmail.com"
    gmail_name = "name <email@gmail.com>"
    gmail_pwd = "password"

    msg = MIMEMultipart()

    msg['From'] = gmail_name
    msg['To'] = to
    msg['Subject'] = subject

    msg.attach(MIMEText(text))

    part = MIMEBase('application', 'octet-stream')
    part.set_payload(open(attach, 'rb').read())
    Encoders.encode_base64(part)
    part.add_header('Content-Disposition',
           'attachment; filename="%s"' % os.path.basename(attach))
    msg.attach(part)

    mailServer = smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com", 587)

    mailServer.ehlo()
    mailServer.starttls()
    mailServer.ehlo()
    mailServer.login(gmail_user, gmail_pwd)
    mailServer.sendmail(gmail_name, to, msg.as_string())
    mailServer.close()

The problem is that the console shows the following error

smtplib.SMTPServerDisconnected: Server not connected

However, if I simply replace 'msg.as_string' with "Whatever string" it works fine. So I think that this issue happens when I try attach a PDF file.

Could you help me please ?

Thanks

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 24 '15 at 07:14

3

You could also use a package specialised for writing HTML emails, showing pictures inline and easily attach files!

The package I'm referring to is yagmail and I'm the developer/maintainer.

import yagmail
yag = yagmail.SMTP(gmail_name, gmail_pwd)
yag.send('xyz@gmail.com', 'Sample subject', contents = attach)

That's all there is to it (3 lines vs 69 lines)!!

Use pip install yagmail to obtain your copy.

Contents can be a list where you also add text, but since you don't have text, you can just only have the attach filename as contents, awesome no? It reads the file, magically determines the encoding, and attached it :)

answered Oct 24 '15 at 07:14

PascalVKooten

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1

Beautiful! Hassle-free. – Swastik Padhi Oct 24 '15 at 22:05
1

Thanks a lot! Why isn't this library more famous? :) – Marjan Moderc Jul 27 '17 at 09:49
1

@MarjanModerc I think I should fire the marketing department ;) – PascalVKooten Jul 27 '17 at 10:00
Wow, this is awesome! I only knew about the long way to do it- the way that the accepted answer suggests. Your library/module is great and saves lots of time. – Roni Sep 28 '21 at 20:41

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:44

1

I believe you should change this: part = MIMEBase('application', 'pdf').
Check How do I send an email with a .csv attachment using Python out for how to try to guess the file type.
Other possible issues:

try adding the header like this: attachment.add_header("Content-Disposition", "attachment", filename=fileToSend)
what Encoders are you using on this line? Encoders.encode_base64(part). I think you should be using from email import encoders and then encoders.encode_base64(part)

edited May 23 '17 at 11:44

Community

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1

answered Oct 20 '15 at 12:29

gplayer

1,741
1
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15

Thanks, I think what you say it's true, but after change it still without working. – Luis González Oct 20 '15 at 12:33

Swastik Padhi · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-20T14:18:27.173

Try this-

import smtplib
import mimetypes
from email.MIMEMultipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.MIMEBase import MIMEBase
from email.MIMEText import MIMEText
from email.Utils import COMMASPACE, formatdate
from email import Encoders


filePath = "fileName.pdf"

From = 'abc@gmail.com'
To = 'xyz@gmail.com'

msg = MIMEMultipart()
msg['From'] = From
msg['To'] = To
msg['Date'] = formatdate(localtime=True)
msg['Subject'] = 'Sample subject'

msg.attach(MIMEText('Sample message'))

try:
    smtp = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')
    smtp.starttls()
    smtp.login('abc@gmail.com', '123456')
except:
    i = 1
else:
    i = 0

if i == 0:
    ctype, encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(filePath)
    if ctype is None or encoding is not None:
        # No guess could be made, or the file is encoded (compressed), so
        # use a generic bag-of-bits type.
        ctype = 'application/octet-stream'
    maintype, subtype = ctype.split('/', 1)
    if maintype == 'text':
        fp = open(filePath)
        # Note: we should handle calculating the charset
        part = MIMEText(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
        fp.close()
    elif maintype == 'image':
        fp = open(filePath, 'rb')
        part = MIMEImage(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
        fp.close()
    elif maintype == 'audio':
        fp = open(filePath, 'rb')
        part = MIMEAudio(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype)
        fp.close()
    else:
        fp = open(filePath, 'rb')
        part = MIMEBase(maintype, subtype)
        part.set_payload(fp.read())
        fp.close()
        # Encode the payload using Base64
        Encoders.encode_base64(part)
    part.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="%s"' % filePath)
    msg.attach(part)
    try:
        smtp.sendmail(From, To, msg.as_string())
    except:
        print "Mail not sent"
    else:
        print "Mail sent"
    smtp.close()
else:
    print "Connection failed"

Adapted from: https://docs.python.org/2/library/email-examples.html

it shows me "Mail not sent", I have sent a txt file using your code and works fine but I still having the same issue — Luis González, Oct 20 '15 at 13:48
@luigonsec I have updated my answer. This one should be able to handle all types of files as attachment. — Swastik Padhi, Oct 20 '15 at 14:19
@CrakC Have a look at my answer, I think you might appreciate it :) — PascalVKooten, Oct 24 '15 at 07:16

Sending email with Python and Gmail SMTP server doesn't work with attachment

3 Answers3