How to send an email with Gmail as provider using Python?

Question

I am trying to send email (Gmail) using python, but I am getting following error.

Traceback (most recent call last):  
File \"emailSend.py\", line 14, in <         


        

Answer 1

You need to say EHLO before just running straight into STARTTLS:

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

---

Also you should really create From:, To: and Subject: message headers, separated from the message body by a blank line and use CRLF as EOL markers.

E.g.

msg = "\r\n".join([
  "From: user_me@gmail.com",
  "To: user_you@gmail.com",
  "Subject: Just a message",
  "",
  "Why, oh why"
  ])

Answer 2

import smtplib
server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com', 587)
server.ehlo()
server.starttls()
server.login("fromaddress", "password")
msg = "HI!"
server.sendmail("fromaddress", "receiveraddress", msg)
server.quit()

Answer 3

There is a gmail API now, which lets you send email, read email and create drafts via REST. Unlike the SMTP calls, it is non-blocking which can be a good thing for thread-based webservers sending email in the request thread (like python webservers). The API is also quite powerful.

• Of course, email should be handed off to a non-webserver queue, but it's nice to have options.

It's easiest to setup if you have Google Apps administrator rights on the domain, because then you can give blanket permission to your client. Otherwise you have to fiddle with OAuth authentication and permission.

Here is a gist demonstrating it:

https://gist.github.com/timrichardson/1154e29174926e462b7a

Answer 4

You can find it here: http://jayrambhia.com/blog/send-emails-using-python

smtp_host = 'smtp.gmail.com'
smtp_port = 587
server = smtplib.SMTP()
server.connect(smtp_host,smtp_port)
server.ehlo()
server.starttls()
server.login(user,passw)
fromaddr = raw_input('Send mail by the name of: ')
tolist = raw_input('To: ').split()
sub = raw_input('Subject: ')

msg = email.MIMEMultipart.MIMEMultipart()
msg['From'] = fromaddr
msg['To'] = email.Utils.COMMASPACE.join(tolist)
msg['Subject'] = sub  
msg.attach(MIMEText(raw_input('Body: ')))
msg.attach(MIMEText('\nsent via python', 'plain'))
server.sendmail(user,tolist,msg.as_string())

Answer 5

Here is a Gmail API example. Although more complicated, this is the only method I found that works in 2019. This example was taken and modified from:

https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides/sending

You'll need create a project with Google's API interfaces through their website. Next you'll need to enable the GMAIL API for your app. Create credentials and then download those creds, save it as credentials.json.

import pickle
import os.path
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow
from google.auth.transport.requests import Request

from email.mime.text import MIMEText
import base64

#pip install --upgrade google-api-python-client google-auth-httplib2 google-auth-oauthlib

# If modifying these scopes, delete the file token.pickle.
SCOPES = ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly', 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.send']

def create_message(sender, to, subject, msg):
    message = MIMEText(msg)
    message['to'] = to
    message['from'] = sender
    message['subject'] = subject

    # Base 64 encode
    b64_bytes = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_bytes())
    b64_string = b64_bytes.decode()
    return {'raw': b64_string}
    #return {'raw': base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_string())}

def send_message(service, user_id, message):
    #try:
    message = (service.users().messages().send(userId=user_id, body=message).execute())
    print( 'Message Id: %s' % message['id'] )
    return message
    #except errors.HttpError, error:print( 'An error occurred: %s' % error )

def main():
    """Shows basic usage of the Gmail API.
    Lists the user's Gmail labels.
    """
    creds = None
    # The file token.pickle stores the user's access and refresh tokens, and is
    # created automatically when the authorization flow completes for the first
    # time.
    if os.path.exists('token.pickle'):
        with open('token.pickle', 'rb') as token:
            creds = pickle.load(token)
    # If there are no (valid) credentials available, let the user log in.
    if not creds or not creds.valid:
        if creds and creds.expired and creds.refresh_token:
            creds.refresh(Request())
        else:
            flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
                'credentials.json', SCOPES)
            creds = flow.run_local_server(port=0)
        # Save the credentials for the next run
        with open('token.pickle', 'wb') as token:
            pickle.dump(creds, token)

    service = build('gmail', 'v1', credentials=creds)

    # Example read operation
    results = service.users().labels().list(userId='me').execute()
    labels = results.get('labels', [])

    if not labels:
        print('No labels found.')
    else:
        print('Labels:')
    for label in labels:
        print(label['name'])

    # Example write
    msg = create_message("from@gmail.com", "to@gmail.com", "Subject", "Msg")
    send_message( service, 'me', msg)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 6

Not directly related but still worth pointing out is that my package tries to make sending gmail messages really quick and painless. It also tries to maintain a list of errors and tries to point to the solution immediately.

It would literally only need this code to do exactly what you wrote:

import yagmail
yag = yagmail.SMTP('user_me@gmail.com')
yag.send('user_you@gmail.com', 'Why,Oh why!')

Or a one liner:

yagmail.SMTP('user_me@gmail.com').send('user_you@gmail.com', 'Why,Oh why!')

For the package/installation please look at git or pip, available for both Python 2 and 3.