How can I send email using Python?

Question

I am writing a program that sends an email using Python. What I have learned from various forums is the following piece of code:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import smtplib
sender = "[email protected]"
receivers = ["[email protected]"]
yourname = "Abhishek Sagar"
recvname = "receptionist"
sub = "Testing email"
body = "who cares"
message = "From: " + yourname + "\n" 
message = message + "To: " + recvname + "\n"
message = message + "Subject: " + sub + "\n" 
message = message + body
try:
    print "Sending email to " + recvname + "...",
    server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')
    username = '[email protected]'  
    password = '*****'  
    server.ehlo()
    server.starttls()  
    server.login(username,password)  
    server.sendmail(sender, receivers, message)         
    server.quit()
    print "successfully sent!"
except  Exception:
    print "Error: unable to send email"

But it is simply printing ""Error: unable to send email" and exits out on the terminal. How might I resolve this?

I modified the last two lines to

except Exception, error:
    print "Unable to send e-mail: '%s'." % str(error)

I get the following error message :

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./2.py", line 45, in <module>
    smtpObj = smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/smtplib.py", line 239, in __init__
    (code, msg) = self.connect(host, port)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/smtplib.py", line 295, in connect
    self.sock = self._get_socket(host, port, self.timeout)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/smtplib.py", line 273, in _get_socket
    return socket.create_connection((port, host), timeout)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/socket.py", line 514, in create_connection
    raise error, msg
socket.error: [Errno 111] Connection refused

Solution 1

If message headers, payload contain non-ascii characters then they should be encoded:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from email.header    import Header
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from getpass         import getpass
from smtplib         import SMTP_SSL


login, password = '[email protected]', getpass('Gmail password:')
recipients = [login]

# create message
msg = MIMEText('message body…', 'plain', 'utf-8')
msg['Subject'] = Header('subject…', 'utf-8')
msg['From'] = login
msg['To'] = ", ".join(recipients)

# send it via gmail
s = SMTP_SSL('smtp.gmail.com', 465, timeout=10)
s.set_debuglevel(1)
try:
    s.login(login, password)
    s.sendmail(msg['From'], recipients, msg.as_string())
finally:
    s.quit()

Solution 2

If you print the error message, you will likely get a comprehensive description of what error occurred. Try (no pun intended) this:

try:
    # ...
except Exception, error:
    print "Unable to send e-mail: '%s'." % str(error)

If, after reading the error message, you still do not understand your error, please update your question with the error message and we can help you some more.

---

Update after additional information:

the error message

socket.error: [Errno 111] Connection refused

means the remote end (e.g. the GMail SMTP server) is refusing the network connection. If you take a look at the smtplib.SMTP constructor, it seems you should change

server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')

to the following.

server = smtplib.SMTP(host='smtp.gmail.com', port=587)

Comments

[Abhishek Sagar]

after doing what you said , i get the following error : Sending email to receptionist... Unable to send e-mail: '[Errno 110] Connection timed out' . i am behind the proxy , so do i need to add something extra to the code.

[André Caron]

@AbhishekSagar: SMTP configuration is a complex topic. Perhaps you can try one of the alternate ports? See configuring other email clients in the GMail frequently asked questions.

[Abhishek Sagar]

yes, i install postfix , and gave up the idea when i searched Configuring the SMTP ! its really complex.

[jprockbelly]

Gmail is now pretty tight with what devices can sign in to the account. If, like me, you have issues using code like this on a remote machine you can try logging into gmail account and checking the "Allow less secure apps" option. There are also tools to authorize specific apps

[jfs]

@jprockbelly: don't compromise security. It works even on the account with 2-step verification. Just generate an app password for your script.