How to Send an Email Using Python Code

The ability to send emails automatically can be very useful in various situations.

For example, you can process crawled data and send reports at scheduled times, or automatically send alert emails when specific events occur.

In this lesson, we will learn how to send a simple email using Python's smtplib library.

Simple Email Sending Code Example

Below is a simple example of sending an email using smtplib.

Simple Email Sending Example Using smtplib

# Importing the smtplib library
import smtplib

# Importing libraries for email composition
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

# Importing libraries for composing email body and subject
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart

# Setting up the sender's information
sender_email = "your_email@example.com"
password = "your_password"

# Setting up the receiver's information
receiver_email = "receiver@example.com"

# Writing the email subject and body
subject = "Test Email"
body = "Hello, this is a test email sent using Python's smtplib."

# Setting up MIME
msg = MIMEMultipart()

# Sender
msg['From'] = sender_email

# Receiver
msg['To'] = receiver_email

# Subject
msg['Subject'] = subject

# Adding the body
msg.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain'))

# Connecting to the SMTP server and sending the email
try:
    # Setting up SMTP server and port number
    server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.example.com', 587)

    # Starting TLS security
    server.starttls()

    # Logging in
    server.login(sender_email, password)

    # Sending the email
    server.sendmail(sender_email, receiver_email, msg.as_string())
    print("Email sent successfully!")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Error occurred while sending email: {e}")
finally:
    server.quit()  # Disconnecting from the server

Detailed Code Explanation

1. Setting up Sender and Receiver Information

At the beginning of the code, you set up the sender and receiver email addresses, and the sender's email account password.

The sender's email and password are used to connect to the SMTP server to send the email.

Setting up Sender and Receiver Information

sender_email = "your_email@example.com"
receiver_email = "receiver@example.com"
password = "your_password"

2. Writing the Email Subject and Body

You write the email's subject (subject) and body (body).

The body is composed of simple text, which is converted to a MIMEText object and attached to the email.

Writing the Email Subject and Body

subject = "Test Email"
body = "Hello, this is a test email sent using Python's smtplib."

After that, you use a MIMEMultipart object to bundle the email's subject, body, sender, and receiver together.

Setting up MIME

# The container for the email message
msg = MIMEMultipart()

# Setting up the sender
msg['From'] = sender_email

# Setting up the receiver
msg['To'] = receiver_email

# Setting up the email subject
msg['Subject'] = subject

# Adding the email body
msg.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain'))

In this code, the MIMEMultipart object bundles various parts of the email (e.g., subject, body, attachments, etc.) together.

The MIMEText object represents the email's body as text, and the 'plain' argument indicates that the text format is plain text.

3. Connecting to the SMTP Server and Sending the Email

Connecting to the SMTP Server

SMTP('smtp.example.com', 587) connects to an external SMTP server.

Here, 587 is the port number for the SMTP server, which is used to send the email.

Port : A number used by programs to communicate in a network

What is TLS?

After setting up the connection to the SMTP server, the security is enhanced with TLS (Transport Layer Security).

TLS is a protocol that encrypts emails, enhancing security to prevent sensitive information from being exposed during email transmission.

The sender logs into the server with their email account, and then uses the sendmail method to send the email.

After completing all actions, the server connection is terminated.

Connecting to the SMTP Server and Sending the Email

# Connecting to the SMTP server
server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.example.com', 587)

# Starting TLS security
server.starttls()

# Logging in with the sender's account
server.login(sender_email, password)

# Sending the email
server.sendmail(sender_email, receiver_email, msg.as_string())

Practice

In the practice code in the code editor, input your subscribed CodeFriends email to receiver_email or check if it is well reflected, and then run the code.

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