python sending email - line breaks removed by Outlook

Question

I am sending some emails from Python using smtplib MIMEtext; and have the often noted problem that Outlook will "sometimes" remove what it considers "extra line breaks".

It is odd, because I print several headers and they all break find, but the text fields in a table are all smooshed - unless the recipient manually clicks Outlook's "restore line breaks".

Because some come through alright, I wonder what is Outlook's criteria for "extra", and thus how to avoid it?

Do I need to format the message as HTML?

Add 3 spaces before \r\n, as shown here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14139165/how-to-get-line-breaks-in-e-mail-sent-using-pythons-smtplib — Richard, Mar 15 '22 at 04:19

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 24 '17 at 17:44

0

You won't be able to fix this. Outlook does it no matter how many line breaks you put in there in my experience. You might be able to trick it by adding spaces on each line, or non-breaksping space characters. It's a dumb feature of outlook....

answered Mar 24 '17 at 17:44

Artagel

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Thanks. I reformatted the output lines, with some additional spaces (for appearance), and it went away. Argh. There must be some solution - since most all Outlook emails do display correctly - perhaps they are HTML? – guthrie Mar 24 '17 at 20:20

python sending email - line breaks removed by Outlook

1 Answers1