Sending Email in Python

Sending emails programmatically is an essential feature for many applications, including notifications, user registrations, and contact forms. Python makes this task easy with its built-in libraries, such as smtplib and email.

What is SMTP?

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a protocol used to send emails over the internet. It allows clients to send messages to a mail server and to specify the recipients. In Python, the smtplib library allows you to work with the SMTP protocol.

How to Send Email in Python?

To send an email in Python, you need an SMTP server (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook). Python's smtplib allows you to connect to these servers and send an email. Additionally, the email.mime library helps create email messages with attachments and HTML content.

Example: Sending a Simple Email


import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart

# Email credentials
sender_email = "your_email@gmail.com"
receiver_email = "receiver_email@gmail.com"
password = "your_password"

# Create the email
message = MIMEMultipart()
message["From"] = sender_email
message["To"] = receiver_email
message["Subject"] = "Test Email from Python"

# Email body content
body = "This is a test email sent from Python!"
message.attach(MIMEText(body, "plain"))

# Connect to Gmail's SMTP server
with smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com", 587) as server:
    server.starttls()  # Encrypts the connection
    server.login(sender_email, password)  # Log in to your email account
    server.sendmail(sender_email, receiver_email, message.as_string())  # Send the email
    print("Email sent successfully!")

Output

Email sent successfully!

Explanation of the Code:

- First, we import necessary modules: smtplib for the SMTP protocol and email.mime for creating the email message.
- We define the sender and receiver email addresses and the sender's password.
- We create the email message using MIMEMultipart and MIMEText to set the subject, sender, recipient, and body content.
- The email is sent through Gmail's SMTP server (smtp.gmail.com) on port 587.
- The starttls() method encrypts the connection, ensuring secure communication.
- The sendmail() function sends the email to the receiver.

Sending emails in Python is a straightforward task with the smtplib and email.mime libraries. This process can be easily customized for sending rich-text emails, attachments, and HTML emails.