.. _topics-email: ============== Sending e-mail ============== .. module:: django.core.mail :synopsis: Helpers to easily send e-mail. Although Python makes sending e-mail relatively easy via the `smtplib library`_, Django provides a couple of light wrappers over it. These wrappers are provided to make sending e-mail extra quick, to make it easy to test email sending during development, and to provide support for platforms that can't use SMTP. The code lives in the ``django.core.mail`` module. .. _smtplib library: http://docs.python.org/library/smtplib.html Quick example ============= In two lines:: from django.core.mail import send_mail send_mail('Subject here', 'Here is the message.', 'from@example.com', ['to@example.com'], fail_silently=False) Mail is sent using the SMTP host and port specified in the :setting:`EMAIL_HOST` and :setting:`EMAIL_PORT` settings. The :setting:`EMAIL_HOST_USER` and :setting:`EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD` settings, if set, are used to authenticate to the SMTP server, and the :setting:`EMAIL_USE_TLS` setting controls whether a secure connection is used. .. note:: The character set of e-mail sent with ``django.core.mail`` will be set to the value of your :setting:`DEFAULT_CHARSET` setting. send_mail() =========== The simplest way to send e-mail is using the function ``django.core.mail.send_mail()``. Here's its definition: .. function:: send_mail(subject, message, from_email, recipient_list, fail_silently=False, auth_user=None, auth_password=None, connection=None) The ``subject``, ``message``, ``from_email`` and ``recipient_list`` parameters are required. * ``subject``: A string. * ``message``: A string. * ``from_email``: A string. * ``recipient_list``: A list of strings, each an e-mail address. Each member of ``recipient_list`` will see the other recipients in the "To:" field of the e-mail message. * ``fail_silently``: A boolean. If it's ``False``, ``send_mail`` will raise an ``smtplib.SMTPException``. See the `smtplib docs`_ for a list of possible exceptions, all of which are subclasses of ``SMTPException``. * ``auth_user``: The optional username to use to authenticate to the SMTP server. If this isn't provided, Django will use the value of the ``EMAIL_HOST_USER`` setting. * ``auth_password``: The optional password to use to authenticate to the SMTP server. If this isn't provided, Django will use the value of the ``EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD`` setting. * ``connection``: The optional email backend to use to send the mail. If unspecified, an instance of the default backend will be used. See the documentation on :ref:`E-mail backends ` for more details. .. _smtplib docs: http://docs.python.org/library/smtplib.html send_mass_mail() ================ ``django.core.mail.send_mass_mail()`` is intended to handle mass e-mailing. Here's the definition: .. function:: send_mass_mail(datatuple, fail_silently=False, auth_user=None, auth_password=None, connection=None) ``datatuple`` is a tuple in which each element is in this format:: (subject, message, from_email, recipient_list) ``fail_silently``, ``auth_user`` and ``auth_password`` have the same functions as in :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()`. Each separate element of ``datatuple`` results in a separate e-mail message. As in :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()`, recipients in the same ``recipient_list`` will all see the other addresses in the e-mail messages' "To:" field. send_mass_mail() vs. send_mail() -------------------------------- The main difference between :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mass_mail()` and :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()` is that :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()` opens a connection to the mail server each time it's executed, while :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mass_mail()` uses a single connection for all of its messages. This makes :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mass_mail()` slightly more efficient. mail_admins() ============= ``django.core.mail.mail_admins()`` is a shortcut for sending an e-mail to the site admins, as defined in the :setting:`ADMINS` setting. Here's the definition: .. function:: mail_admins(subject, message, fail_silently=False, connection=None) ``mail_admins()`` prefixes the subject with the value of the :setting:`EMAIL_SUBJECT_PREFIX` setting, which is ``"[Django] "`` by default. The "From:" header of the e-mail will be the value of the :setting:`SERVER_EMAIL` setting. This method exists for convenience and readability. mail_managers() function ======================== ``django.core.mail.mail_managers()`` is just like ``mail_admins()``, except it sends an e-mail to the site managers, as defined in the :setting:`MANAGERS` setting. Here's the definition: .. function:: mail_managers(subject, message, fail_silently=False, connection=None) Examples ======== This sends a single e-mail to john@example.com and jane@example.com, with them both appearing in the "To:":: send_mail('Subject', 'Message.', 'from@example.com', ['john@example.com', 'jane@example.com']) This sends a message to john@example.com and jane@example.com, with them both receiving a separate e-mail:: datatuple = ( ('Subject', 'Message.', 'from@example.com', ['john@example.com']), ('Subject', 'Message.', 'from@example.com', ['jane@example.com']), ) send_mass_mail(datatuple) Preventing header injection =========================== `Header injection`_ is a security exploit in which an attacker inserts extra e-mail headers to control the "To:" and "From:" in e-mail messages that your scripts generate. The Django e-mail functions outlined above all protect against header injection by forbidding newlines in header values. If any ``subject``, ``from_email`` or ``recipient_list`` contains a newline (in either Unix, Windows or Mac style), the e-mail function (e.g. :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()`) will raise ``django.core.mail.BadHeaderError`` (a subclass of ``ValueError``) and, hence, will not send the e-mail. It's your responsibility to validate all data before passing it to the e-mail functions. If a ``message`` contains headers at the start of the string, the headers will simply be printed as the first bit of the e-mail message. Here's an example view that takes a ``subject``, ``message`` and ``from_email`` from the request's POST data, sends that to admin@example.com and redirects to "/contact/thanks/" when it's done:: from django.core.mail import send_mail, BadHeaderError def send_email(request): subject = request.POST.get('subject', '') message = request.POST.get('message', '') from_email = request.POST.get('from_email', '') if subject and message and from_email: try: send_mail(subject, message, from_email, ['admin@example.com']) except BadHeaderError: return HttpResponse('Invalid header found.') return HttpResponseRedirect('/contact/thanks/') else: # In reality we'd use a form class # to get proper validation errors. return HttpResponse('Make sure all fields are entered and valid.') .. _Header injection: http://www.nyphp.org/phundamentals/email_header_injection.php .. _emailmessage-and-smtpconnection: The EmailMessage class ====================== .. versionadded:: 1.0 Django's :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()` and :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mass_mail()` functions are actually thin wrappers that make use of the :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` class. Not all features of the :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` class are available through the :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()` and related wrapper functions. If you wish to use advanced features, such as BCC'ed recipients, file attachments, or multi-part e-mail, you'll need to create :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` instances directly. .. note:: This is a design feature. :meth:`~django.core.mail.send_mail()` and related functions were originally the only interface Django provided. However, the list of parameters they accepted was slowly growing over time. It made sense to move to a more object-oriented design for e-mail messages and retain the original functions only for backwards compatibility. :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` is responsible for creating the e-mail message itself. The :ref:`e-mail backend ` is then responsible for sending the e-mail. For convenience, :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` provides a simple ``send()`` method for sending a single email. If you need to send multiple messages, the email backend API :ref:`provides an alternative `. EmailMessage Objects -------------------- .. class:: EmailMessage The :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` class is initialized with the following parameters (in the given order, if positional arguments are used). All parameters are optional and can be set at any time prior to calling the ``send()`` method. * ``subject``: The subject line of the e-mail. * ``body``: The body text. This should be a plain text message. * ``from_email``: The sender's address. Both ``fred@example.com`` and ``Fred `` forms are legal. If omitted, the :setting:`DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL` setting is used. * ``to``: A list or tuple of recipient addresses. * ``bcc``: A list or tuple of addresses used in the "Bcc" header when sending the e-mail. * ``connection``: An e-mail backend instance. Use this parameter if you want to use the same connection for multiple messages. If omitted, a new connection is created when ``send()`` is called. * ``attachments``: A list of attachments to put on the message. These can be either ``email.MIMEBase.MIMEBase`` instances, or ``(filename, content, mimetype)`` triples. * ``headers``: A dictionary of extra headers to put on the message. The keys are the header name, values are the header values. It's up to the caller to ensure header names and values are in the correct format for an e-mail message. For example:: email = EmailMessage('Hello', 'Body goes here', 'from@example.com', ['to1@example.com', 'to2@example.com'], ['bcc@example.com'], headers = {'Reply-To': 'another@example.com'}) The class has the following methods: * ``send(fail_silently=False)`` sends the message. If a connection was specified when the email was constructed, that connection will be used. Otherwise, an instance of the default backend will be instantiated and used. If the keyword argument ``fail_silently`` is ``True``, exceptions raised while sending the message will be quashed. * ``message()`` constructs a ``django.core.mail.SafeMIMEText`` object (a subclass of Python's ``email.MIMEText.MIMEText`` class) or a ``django.core.mail.SafeMIMEMultipart`` object holding the message to be sent. If you ever need to extend the :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` class, you'll probably want to override this method to put the content you want into the MIME object. * ``recipients()`` returns a list of all the recipients of the message, whether they're recorded in the ``to`` or ``bcc`` attributes. This is another method you might need to override when subclassing, because the SMTP server needs to be told the full list of recipients when the message is sent. If you add another way to specify recipients in your class, they need to be returned from this method as well. * ``attach()`` creates a new file attachment and adds it to the message. There are two ways to call ``attach()``: * You can pass it a single argument that is an ``email.MIMEBase.MIMEBase`` instance. This will be inserted directly into the resulting message. * Alternatively, you can pass ``attach()`` three arguments: ``filename``, ``content`` and ``mimetype``. ``filename`` is the name of the file attachment as it will appear in the e-mail, ``content`` is the data that will be contained inside the attachment and ``mimetype`` is the optional MIME type for the attachment. If you omit ``mimetype``, the MIME content type will be guessed from the filename of the attachment. For example:: message.attach('design.png', img_data, 'image/png') * ``attach_file()`` creates a new attachment using a file from your filesystem. Call it with the path of the file to attach and, optionally, the MIME type to use for the attachment. If the MIME type is omitted, it will be guessed from the filename. The simplest use would be:: message.attach_file('/images/weather_map.png') .. _DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL: ../settings/#default-from-email Sending alternative content types ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It can be useful to include multiple versions of the content in an e-mail; the classic example is to send both text and HTML versions of a message. With Django's e-mail library, you can do this using the ``EmailMultiAlternatives`` class. This subclass of :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` has an ``attach_alternative()`` method for including extra versions of the message body in the e-mail. All the other methods (including the class initialization) are inherited directly from :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage`. To send a text and HTML combination, you could write:: from django.core.mail import EmailMultiAlternatives subject, from_email, to = 'hello', 'from@example.com', 'to@example.com' text_content = 'This is an important message.' html_content = '

This is an important message.

' msg = EmailMultiAlternatives(subject, text_content, from_email, [to]) msg.attach_alternative(html_content, "text/html") msg.send() By default, the MIME type of the ``body`` parameter in an :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` is ``"text/plain"``. It is good practice to leave this alone, because it guarantees that any recipient will be able to read the e-mail, regardless of their mail client. However, if you are confident that your recipients can handle an alternative content type, you can use the ``content_subtype`` attribute on the :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` class to change the main content type. The major type will always be ``"text"``, but you can change it to the subtype. For example:: msg = EmailMessage(subject, html_content, from_email, [to]) msg.content_subtype = "html" # Main content is now text/html msg.send() .. _topic-email-backends: E-Mail Backends =============== .. versionadded:: 1.2 The actual sending of an e-mail is handled by the e-mail backend. The e-mail backend class has the following methods: * ``open()`` instantiates an long-lived email-sending connection. * ``close()`` closes the current email-sending connection. * ``send_messages(email_messages)`` sends a list of :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` objects. If the connection is not open, this call will implicitly open the connection, and close the connection afterwards. If the connection is already open, it will be left open after mail has been sent. Obtaining an instance of an e-mail backend ------------------------------------------ The :meth:`get_connection` function in ``django.core.mail`` returns an instance of the e-mail backend that you can use. .. currentmodule:: django.core.mail .. function:: get_connection(backend=None, fail_silently=False, *args, **kwargs) By default, a call to ``get_connection()`` will return an instance of the email backend specified in :setting:`EMAIL_BACKEND`. If you specify the ``backend`` argument, an instance of that backend will be instantiated. The ``fail_silently`` argument controls how the backend should handle errors. If ``fail_silently`` is True, exceptions during the email sending process will be silently ignored. All other arguments are passed directly to the constructor of the e-mail backend. Django ships with several e-mail sending backends. With the exception of the SMTP backend (which is the default), these backends are only useful during testing and development. If you have special email sending requirements, you can :ref:`write your own email backend `. .. _topic-email-smtp-backend: SMTP backend ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the default backend. E-mail will be sent through a SMTP server. The server address and authentication credentials are set in the :setting:`EMAIL_HOST`, :setting:`EMAIL_POST`, :setting:`EMAIL_HOST_USER`, :setting:`EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD` and :setting:`EMAIL_USE_TLS` settings in your settings file. The SMTP backend is the default configuration inherited by Django. If you want to specify it explicitly, put the following in your settings:: EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp' .. admonition:: SMTPConnection objects Prior to version 1.2, Django provided a :class:`~django.core.mail.SMTPConnection` class. This class provided a way to directly control the use of SMTP to send email. This class has been deprecated in favor of the generic email backend API. For backwards compatibility :class:`~django.core.mail.SMTPConnection` is still available in ``django.core.mail`` as an alias for the SMTP backend. New code should use :meth:`~django.core.mail.get_connection` instead. .. _topic-email-console-backend: Console backend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Instead of sending out real e-mails the console backend just writes the e-mails that would be send to the standard output. By default, the console backend writes to ``stdout``. You can use a different stream-like object by providing the ``stream`` keyword argument when constructing the connection. To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:: EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.console' This backend is not intended for use in production -- it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development. .. _topic-email-file-backend: File backend ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The file backend writes e-mails to a file. A new file is created for each new session that is opened on this backend. The directory to which the files are written is either taken from the :setting:`EMAIL_FILE_PATH` setting or from the ``file_path`` keyword when creating a connection with :meth:`~django.core.mail.get_connection`. To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:: EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.filebased' EMAIL_FILE_PATH = '/tmp/app-messages' # change this to a proper location This backend is not intended for use in production -- it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development. .. _topic-email-memory-backend: In-memory backend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The ``'locmem'`` backend stores messages in a special attribute of the ``django.core.mail`` module. The ``outbox`` attribute is created when the first message is send. It's a list with an :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` instance for each message that would be send. To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:: EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.locmem' This backend is not intended for use in production -- it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development and testing. .. _topic-email-dummy-backend: Dummy backend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As the name suggests the dummy backend does nothing with your messages. To specify this backend, put the following in your settings:: EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.dummy' This backend is not intended for use in production -- it is provided as a convenience that can be used during development. .. _topic-custom-email-backend: Defining a custom e-mail backend -------------------------------- If you need to change how e-mails are send you can write your own e-mail backend. The ``EMAIL_BACKEND`` setting in your settings file is then the Python import path for your backend. Custom e-mail backends should subclass ``BaseEmailBackend`` that is located in the ``django.core.mail.backends.base`` module. A custom e-mail backend must implement the ``send_messages(email_messages)`` method. This method receives a list of :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` instances and returns the number of successfully delivered messages. If your backend has any concept of a persistent session or connection, you should also implement the ``open()`` and ``close()`` methods. Refer to ``SMTPEmailBackend`` for a reference implementation. .. _topics-sending-multiple-emails: Sending multiple emails ----------------------- Establishing and closing an SMTP connection (or any other network connection, for that matter) is an expensive process. If you have a lot of emails to send, it makes sense to reuse an SMTP connection, rather than creating and destroying a connection every time you want to send an email. There are two ways you tell an email backend to reuse a connection. Firstly, you can use the ``send_messages()`` method. ``send_messages()`` takes a list of :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` instances (or subclasses), and sends them all using a single connection. For example, if you have a function called ``get_notification_email()`` that returns a list of :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` objects representing some periodic e-mail you wish to send out, you could send these emails using a single call to send_messages:: from django.core import mail connection = mail.get_connection() # Use default email connection messages = get_notification_email() connection.send_messages(messages) In this example, the call to ``send_messages()`` opens a connection on the backend, sends the list of messages, and then closes the connection again. The second approach is to use the ``open()`` and ``close()`` methods on the email backend to manually control the connection. ``send_messages()`` will not manually open or close the connection if it is already open, so if you manually open the connection, you can control when it is closed. For example:: from django.core import mail connection = mail.get_connection() # Manually open the connection connection.open() # Construct an email message that uses the connection email1 = mail.EmailMessage('Hello', 'Body goes here', 'from@example.com', ['to1@example.com'], connection=connection) email1.send() # Send the email # Construct two more messages email2 = mail.EmailMessage('Hello', 'Body goes here', 'from@example.com', ['to2@example.com']) email3 = mail.EmailMessage('Hello', 'Body goes here', 'from@example.com', ['to3@example.com']) # Send the two emails in a single call - connection.send_messages([email2, email3]) # The connection was already open so send_messages() doesn't close it. # We need to manually close the connection. connection.close() Testing e-mail sending ====================== The are times when you do not want Django to send e-mails at all. For example, while developing a website, you probably don't want to send out thousands of e-mails -- but you may want to validate that e-mails will be sent to the right people under the right conditions, and that those e-mails will contain the correct content. The easiest way to test your project's use of e-mail is to use the ``console`` email backend. This backend redirects all email to stdout, allowing you to inspect the content of mail. The ``file`` email backend can also be useful during development -- this backend dumps the contents of every SMTP connection to a file that can be inspected at your leisure. Another approach is to use a "dumb" SMTP server that receives the e-mails locally and displays them to the terminal, but does not actually send anything. Python has a built-in way to accomplish this with a single command:: python -m smtpd -n -c DebuggingServer localhost:1025 This command will start a simple SMTP server listening on port 1025 of localhost. This server simply prints to standard output all e-mail headers and the e-mail body. You then only need to set the :setting:`EMAIL_HOST` and :setting:`EMAIL_PORT` accordingly, and you are set. For a more detailed discussion of testing and processing of e-mails locally, see the Python documentation on the `SMTP Server`_. .. _SMTP Server: http://docs.python.org/library/smtpd.html SMTPConnection ============== .. class:: SMTPConnection .. deprecated:: 1.2 The ``SMTPConnection`` class has been deprecated in favor of the generic email backend API. For backwards compatibility ``SMTPConnection`` is still available in ``django.core.mail`` as an alias for the :ref:`SMTP backend `. New code should use :meth:`~django.core.mail.get_connection` instead.