Question

I would like to compress a folder and all its sub-folders/files, and email the zip file as an attachment. What would be the best way to achieve this with Python?

Answer 1

You can use the zipfile module to compress the file using the zip standard, the email module to create the email with the attachment, and the smtplib module to send it – all using only the standard library.

Python – Batteries Included

If you don’t feel like programming and would rather ask a question on stackoverflow.org instead, or (as suggested in the comments) left off the homework tag, well, here it is:

import smtplib import zipfile import tempfile from email import encoders from email.message import Message from email.mime.base import MIMEBase from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart      def send_file_zipped(the_file, recipients, sender='[e-mail]'):     zf = tempfile.TemporaryFile(prefix='mail', suffix='.zip')     zip = zipfile.ZipFile(zf, 'w')     zip.write(the_file)     zip.close()     zf.seek(0)      # Create the message     themsg = MIMEMultipart()     themsg['Subject'] = 'File %s' % the_file     themsg['To'] = ', '.join(recipients)     themsg['From'] = sender     themsg.preamble = 'I am not using a MIME-aware mail reader.\n'     msg = MIMEBase('application', 'zip')     msg.set_payload(zf.read())     encoders.encode_base64(msg)     msg.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment',                     filename=the_file + '.zip')     themsg.attach(msg)     themsg = themsg.as_string()      # send the message     smtp = smtplib.SMTP()     smtp.connect()     smtp.sendmail(sender, recipients, themsg)     smtp.close()      '''     # alternative to the above 4 lines if you're using gmail     server = smtplib.SMTP_SSL('smtp.gmail.com', 465)     server.login('username', 'password')     server.sendmail(sender,recipients,themsg)     server.quit()     ''' 

With this function, you can just do:

send_file_zipped('result.txt', ['[e-mail]']) 

You’re welcome.