How to send an email with python

Question

What is the process for sending an email using python. What I found in my research was either different than what I was attempting or didn't work when I attempted to actually use it. This doesn't seem like it would be a complicated task.

Answer 1

I made it in python3.6.3 and after that I rebuilt the code to python3.2.6 but it works. :)

First of all we gonna import few things which are in a standard Python library.

import smtplib
from getpass import getpass
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

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Tip! If you want to send email from gmail you have to enable less-secure app: https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps

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We have to make an email so:

sender = 'example_sender@gmail.com'
receiver = 'example_receiver@gmail.com'

content = """The receiver will see this message.
            Best regards"""

msg = MIMEText(content)
msg['From'] = sender
msg['To'] = receiver
msg['Subject'] = 'Simple app script'

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Tip! Of course you can also read content for example from file by using:

with open('/path/to/your/file', 'r') as file:
    content = file.read()

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Now we can handle a "magic" server side.

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Tip! Server name you can easily found in your email settings. (IMAP/POP page) Here you have a list of servers I've found: https://www.arclab.com/en/kb/email/list-of-smtp-and-pop3-servers-mailserver-list.html

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The solution for gmail, but you it can work with any server:

smtp_server_name = 'smtp.gmail.com'
#port = '465' # for secure messages
port = '587' # for normal messages

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Tip! There are answers for difference of these ports: What is the difference between ports 465 and 587?

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I think this sample of code is simply. By smtplib.SMTP_SSL we can only handle server by secure port (465). In other case we use different method.

if port == '465':
    server = smtplib.SMTP_SSL('{}:{}'.format(smtp_server_name, port))
else :
    server = smtplib.SMTP('{}:{}'.format(smtp_server_name, port))
    server.starttls() # this is for secure reason

server.login(sender, getpass(prompt="Email Password: "))
server.send_message(msg)
server.quit()

When server is going to login you have to type your password after prompt in your shell.

And that's it. I ran this on Linux from command line.

Please feel free to ask for questions! :)

PS. I tested it on Windows 7 on fresh install of python 3.2.2. Everything works.