Send emails with flask and outside context / cronjobs

Question

I have a project which is structured similar to the overholt and fbone example. I can send emails from all my blueprints fine, but struggle to send outside. E.g. from within a cron script or celery task. I keep getting the error working outside of application context

app/factory.py

from flask import Flask
from .extensions import mail

def create_app(package_name, package_path, settings_override=None,
           register_security_blueprint=True):

    app = Flask(package_name, instance_relative_config=True)

    mail.init_app(app)
    register_blueprints(app, package_name, package_path)
    app.wsgi_app = HTTPMethodOverrideMiddleware(app.wsgi_app)

    return app

app/extensions.py

from flask_mail import Mail
mail = Mail()

app/frontend/admin.py

bp = Blueprint('admin', __name__, url_prefix='/admin', static_folder='static')

@bp.route('/')
def admin():
    msg = Message(......)
    mail.send(msg)

Everything up until here works fine. Now I have a separate module in app which has some cron scripts which now fail.

app/cron/alerts.py

from ..extensions import mail
from flask.ext.mail import Message

def alert():
    msg = Message('asdfasdf', sender='hello@example.com', recipients=['hello@example.com'])
    msg.body = 'hello'
    mail.send(msg)

Which produces the error. How can I get around this?

raise RuntimeError('working outside of application context')
RuntimeError: working outside of application context

@MarcK I did see that one but i'm not sure where i get `app` from? — lennard, Mar 15 '16 at 17:09
@lennard Where do you get the `app` in `app/factory.py` in your example? — lord63. j, Mar 16 '16 at 05:51
@lord63.j I've updated the code with where i get app from in factory.py — lennard, Mar 16 '16 at 09:00
@lennard I don't think you actually accept it. The community comes through and marks it as one. Glad you got your code working. http://stackoverflow.com/help/duplicates — Marc K, Mar 16 '16 at 15:56

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 15 '16 at 17:09

1

You need use Flask-Mail:

from flask_mail import Mail
mail = Mail(app)

answered Mar 15 '16 at 17:09

JRazor

2,707
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@lennard, check documentation. it's not big. – JRazor Mar 15 '16 at 17:24

René Jahn · Answer 2 · 2016-03-16T14:08:53.667

-1

I would recommend going with celery. For the context problem I have found my solution in the following.

Have a look at this:

Miguel Grinberg's Blogpost on celery

Or if you are using the factory pattern in your application:

Celery with Factory Pattern

The second one is some kind of further/extended reading. Both of them helped me a lot. (The second one also solved a context issue for me)

edited Mar 16 '16 at 14:08

answered Mar 16 '16 at 13:09

René Jahn

1,155
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Send emails with flask and outside context / cronjobs

2 Answers2