From 8a844e761d098d4005725f991a5e120a1f17cb70 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Carlton Gibson <carlton.gibson@noumenal.es>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2023 11:10:06 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Improved connection clean-up for SMTP backend.

---
 django/core/mail/backends/smtp.py | 14 ++++++++------
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/django/core/mail/backends/smtp.py b/django/core/mail/backends/smtp.py
index c7ba06cde2..1ee48269ae 100644
--- a/django/core/mail/backends/smtp.py
+++ b/django/core/mail/backends/smtp.py
@@ -130,12 +130,14 @@ class EmailBackend(BaseEmailBackend):
                 # Trying to send would be pointless.
                 return 0
             num_sent = 0
-            for message in email_messages:
-                sent = self._send(message)
-                if sent:
-                    num_sent += 1
-            if new_conn_created:
-                self.close()
+            try:
+                for message in email_messages:
+                    sent = self._send(message)
+                    if sent:
+                        num_sent += 1
+            finally:
+                if new_conn_created:
+                    self.close()
         return num_sent
 
     def _send(self, email_message):