7.1.13 Examples
Here are a few examples of how to use the email package to read, write, and send simple email messages, as well as more complex MIME messages.
First, let's see how to create and send a simple text message:
# Import smtplib for the actual sending function import smtplib # Import the email modules we'll need from email.mime.text import MIMEText # Open a plain text file for reading. For this example, assume that # the text file contains only ASCII characters. fp = open(textfile, 'rb') # Create a text/plain message msg = MIMEText(fp.read()) fp.close() # me == the sender's email address # you == the recipient's email address msg['Subject'] = 'The contents of %s' % textfile msg['From'] = me msg['To'] = you # Send the message via our own SMTP server, but don't include the # envelope header. s = smtplib.SMTP() s.connect() s.sendmail(me, [you], msg.as_string()) s.close()
Here's an example of how to send a MIME message containing a bunch of family pictures that may be residing in a directory:
# Import smtplib for the actual sending function import smtplib # Here are the email package modules we'll need from email.mime.image import MIMEImage from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart COMMASPACE = ', ' # Create the container (outer) email message. msg = MIMEMultipart() msg['Subject'] = 'Our family reunion' # me == the sender's email address # family = the list of all recipients' email addresses msg['From'] = me msg['To'] = COMMASPACE.join(family) msg.preamble = 'Our family reunion' # Assume we know that the image files are all in PNG format for file in pngfiles: # Open the files in binary mode. Let the MIMEImage class automatically # guess the specific image type. fp = open(file, 'rb') img = MIMEImage(fp.read()) fp.close() msg.attach(img) # Send the email via our own SMTP server. s = smtplib.SMTP() s.connect() s.sendmail(me, family, msg.as_string()) s.close()
Here's an example of how to send the entire contents of a directory as an email message: 7.5
#!/usr/bin/env python """Send the contents of a directory as a MIME message.""" import os import sys import smtplib # For guessing MIME type based on file name extension import mimetypes from optparse import OptionParser from email import encoders from email.message import Message from email.mime.audio import MIMEAudio from email.mime.base import MIMEBase from email.mime.image import MIMEImage from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart from email.mime.text import MIMEText COMMASPACE = ', ' def main(): parser = OptionParser(usage="""\ Send the contents of a directory as a MIME message. Usage: %prog [options] Unless the -o option is given, the email is sent by forwarding to your local SMTP server, which then does the normal delivery process. Your local machine must be running an SMTP server. """) parser.add_option('-d', '--directory', type='string', action='store', help="""Mail the contents of the specified directory, otherwise use the current directory. Only the regular files in the directory are sent, and we don't recurse to subdirectories.""") parser.add_option('-o', '--output', type='string', action='store', metavar='FILE', help="""Print the composed message to FILE instead of sending the message to the SMTP server.""") parser.add_option('-s', '--sender', type='string', action='store', metavar='SENDER', help='The value of the From: header (required)') parser.add_option('-r', '--recipient', type='string', action='append', metavar='RECIPIENT', default=[], dest='recipients', help='A To: header value (at least one required)') opts, args = parser.parse_args() if not opts.sender or not opts.recipients: parser.print_help() sys.exit(1) directory = opts.directory if not directory: directory = '.' # Create the enclosing (outer) message outer = MIMEMultipart() outer['Subject'] = 'Contents of directory %s' % os.path.abspath(directory) outer['To'] = COMMASPACE.join(opts.recipients) outer['From'] = opts.sender outer.preamble = 'You will not see this in a MIME-aware mail reader.\n' for filename in os.listdir(directory): path = os.path.join(directory, filename) if not os.path.isfile(path): continue # Guess the content type based on the file's extension. Encoding # will be ignored, although we should check for simple things like # gzip'd or compressed files. ctype, encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(path) if ctype is None or encoding is not None: # No guess could be made, or the file is encoded (compressed), so # use a generic bag-of-bits type. ctype = 'application/octet-stream' maintype, subtype = ctype.split('/', 1) if maintype == 'text': fp = open(path) # Note: we should handle calculating the charset msg = MIMEText(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype) fp.close() elif maintype == 'image': fp = open(path, 'rb') msg = MIMEImage(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype) fp.close() elif maintype == 'audio': fp = open(path, 'rb') msg = MIMEAudio(fp.read(), _subtype=subtype) fp.close() else: fp = open(path, 'rb') msg = MIMEBase(maintype, subtype) msg.set_payload(fp.read()) fp.close() # Encode the payload using Base64 encoders.encode_base64(msg) # Set the filename parameter msg.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment', filename=filename) outer.attach(msg) # Now send or store the message composed = outer.as_string() if opts.output: fp = open(opts.output, 'w') fp.write(composed) fp.close() else: s = smtplib.SMTP() s.connect() s.sendmail(opts.sender, opts.recipients, composed) s.close() if __name__ == '__main__': main()
And finally, here's an example of how to unpack a MIME message like the one above, into a directory of files:
#!/usr/bin/env python """Unpack a MIME message into a directory of files.""" import os import sys import email import errno import mimetypes from optparse import OptionParser def main(): parser = OptionParser(usage="""\ Unpack a MIME message into a directory of files. Usage: %prog [options] msgfile """) parser.add_option('-d', '--directory', type='string', action='store', help="""Unpack the MIME message into the named directory, which will be created if it doesn't already exist.""") opts, args = parser.parse_args() if not opts.directory: parser.print_help() sys.exit(1) try: msgfile = args[0] except IndexError: parser.print_help() sys.exit(1) try: os.mkdir(opts.directory) except OSError, e: # Ignore directory exists error if e.errno <> errno.EEXIST: raise fp = open(msgfile) msg = email.message_from_file(fp) fp.close() counter = 1 for part in msg.walk(): # multipart/* are just containers if part.get_content_maintype() == 'multipart': continue # Applications should really sanitize the given filename so that an # email message can't be used to overwrite important files filename = part.get_filename() if not filename: ext = mimetypes.guess_extension(part.get_type()) if not ext: # Use a generic bag-of-bits extension ext = '.bin' filename = 'part-%03d%s' % (counter, ext) counter += 1 fp = open(os.path.join(opts.directory, filename), 'wb') fp.write(part.get_payload(decode=True)) fp.close() if __name__ == '__main__': main()
Footnotes
- Thanks to Matthew Dixon Cowles for the original inspiration and examples.