Sending Emails

This section covers the basics of sending emails. See Configuring Email to revise how EmailSender is configured. At minimum, sending an email requires:

from redmail import EmailSender
email = EmailSender(host='localhost', port=0)

email.send(
    subject='email subject',
    sender="me@example.com",
    receivers=['you@example.com']
)

Note

If you don’t spesify the sender, the sender is considered to be email.sender. If email.sender is also missing, the sender is then set to be email.username. Ensure that any of these is a valid email address.

Similar flow of logic applies to most attributes. You can set defaults on the email instance which are used in case they are not passed via the method call email.send(...).

Here is an example:

email = EmailSender(host='localhost', port=0)
email.subject = "email subject"
email.receivers = ["you@example.com"]
email.send(
    sender="me@example.com",
    subject="important email"
)

The above sends an email that has "important email" as the email subject and the email is sent to address you@example.com.

Note

Some email providers (such as Gmail) do not allow specifying sender. For example, Gmail will outright ignore it and always use your own email address.

Sending Email with Text Body

To send an email with plain text message:

email.send(
    subject='email subject',
    sender="me@example.com",
    receivers=['you@example.com'],
    text="Hi, this is an email."
)

Sending Email with HTML Body

To send an email with html content:

email.send(
    subject='email subject',
    sender="me@example.com",
    receivers=['you@example.com'],
    html="""
        <h1>Hi,</h1>
        <p>this is an email.</p>
    """
)

Sending Email with text and HTML Body

You can also include both to your email:

email.send(
    subject='email subject',
    sender="me@example.com",
    receivers=['you@example.com'],
    text="Hi, this is an email.",
    html="""
        <h1>Hi,</h1>
        <p>this is an email.</p>
    """
)

Sending Email with cc and bcc

You can also include carbon copy (cc) and blind carbon copy (bcc) to your emails:

email.send(
    subject='email subject',
    sender="me@example.com",
    receivers=['you@example.com'],
    cc=['also@example.com'],
    bcc=['outsider@example.com']
)

Sending Email with Alias

You can also alias the sender and receivers:

email.send(
    subject='email subject',
    sender="The Sender <me@example.com>",
    receivers=['The Receiver <you@example.com>']
)

Alias is an alternative text that is displayed instead of the actual email addresses. The receivers can still get the addresses though.

Sending with Custom Headers

Sometimes you might want to override or add custom email headers to your email. For example, you might want to set a custom date for the email and set it as important:

import datetime

email.send(
    subject='email subject',
    sender="The Sender <me@example.com>",
    receivers=['you@example.com'],
    headers={
        "Importance": "high",
        "Date": datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 31, 6, 56, 46)
    }
)

Read more about email headers from IANA’s website.

Note

Headers passed this way can override the other headers such as From, To, Cc, Bcc, Date and Message-ID.

Sending Multiple Emails

Normally Red Mail opens and closes the connection to the SMTP server when sending each email. If you are sending large amount of emails it may be beneficial to leave the connection open:

with email:
    email.send(
        subject='email subject',
        sender="me@example.com",
        receivers=['you@example.com']
    )

    email.send(
        subject='email subject',
        sender="me@example.com",
        receivers=['they@example.com']
    )
    ...

Alternatively, you may use the connect and close methods:

try:
    email.connect()
    email.send(
        subject='email subject',
        sender="me@example.com",
        receivers=['you@example.com']
    )
    email.send(
        subject='email subject',
        sender="me@example.com",
        receivers=['they@example.com']
    )
    ...
finally:
    email.close()