Using SMTP with Python
Contents
1. Using the smtplib library
General workflow is:
- Create SMTP server object
- Connect/Login
- Sendmail
- Quit
You can combine (1) and (2).
2. Usage
1 import smtplib
2
3 from_email = 'xxx@example.com'
4 to_email = 'yyy@example.com'
5 message = """From: %s
6 To: %s
7 Subject: Hello there
8
9 What a nice day!
10 """ % (from_email, to_email)
11
12 # Simplest usage
13 server=smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
14 server.sendmail( from_email, [to_email], message)
15 server.quit()
16
17 # Longer form
18 server=smtplib.SMTP()
19 server.connect('localhost')
20 server.sendmail( from_email, [to_email], message)
21 server.quit()
22
3. Secured SMTP
1 import smtplib
2
3 # If using TLS
4 server=smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
5 server.starttls() # Do this before authentication
6 server.sendmail( from_email, [to_email], message)
7 server.quit()
8
9 # If using SSL
10 server=smtplib.SMTP_SSL('localhost')
11 server.sendmail( from_email, [to_email], message)
12 server.quit()
13
4. SMTP Client Authentication
1 import smtplib
2
3 # If using TLS
4 server=smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
5 server.starttls() # Do this before authentication
6 server.login('username', 'password')
7 server.sendmail( from_email, [to_email], message)
8 server.quit()
9
10 # If using SSL
11 server=smtplib.SMTP_SSL('localhost')
12 server.login('username', 'password')
13 server.sendmail( from_email, [to_email], message)
14 server.quit()
15
5. Exceptions
All smtplib exceptions are subclasses of smtplib.SMTPException
6. Debugging
To debug SMTP connection errors, set before doing any SMTP transactions.