Question

I’m using the following method to send mail from Python using SMTP. Is it the right method to use or are there gotchas I’m missing ?

from smtplib import SMTP import datetime  debuglevel = 0  smtp = SMTP() smtp.set_debuglevel(debuglevel) smtp.connect('YOUR.MAIL.SERVER', 26) smtp.login('USERNAME@DOMAIN', 'PASSWORD')  from_addr = 'John Doe <[e-mail]>' to_addr = '[e-mail]'  subj = 'hello' date = datetime.datetime.now().strftime( '%d/%m/%Y %H:%M' )  message_text = 'Hello\nThis is a mail from your server\n\nBye\n'  msg = 'From: %s\nTo: %s\nSubject: %s\nDate: %s\n\n%s'          % ( from_addr, to_addr, subj, date, message_text )  smtp.sendmail(from_addr, to_addr, msg) smtp.quit() 

Answer 1

The script I use is quite similar; I post it here as an example of how to use the email.* modules to generate MIME messages; so this script can be easily modified to attach pictures, etc.

I rely on my ISP to add the date time header.

My ISP requires me to use a secure smtp connection to send mail, I rely on the smtplib module (downloadable at http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~db2501/ssmtplib.py)

As in your script, the username and password, (given dummy values below), used to authenticate on the SMTP server, are in plain text in the source. This is a security weakness; but the best alternative depends on how careful you need (want?) to be about protecting these.

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#! /usr/local/bin/python   SMTPserver = 'smtp.att.yahoo.com' sender =     'me@my_email_domain.net' destination = ['recipient@her_email_domain.com']  USERNAME = 'USER_NAME_FOR_INTERNET_SERVICE_PROVIDER' PASSWORD = 'PASSWORD_INTERNET_SERVICE_PROVIDER'  # typical values for text_subtype are plain, html, xml text_subtype = 'plain'   content='''\ Test message '''  subject='Sent from Python'  import sys import os import re  from smtplib import SMTP_SSL as SMTP       # this invokes the secure SMTP protocol (port 465, uses SSL) # from smtplib import SMTP                  # use this for standard SMTP protocol   (port 25, no encryption)  # old version # from email.MIMEText import MIMEText from email.mime.text import MIMEText  try:     msg = MIMEText(content, text_subtype)     msg['Subject']=       subject     msg['From']   = sender # some SMTP servers will do this automatically, not all      conn = SMTP(SMTPserver)     conn.set_debuglevel(False)     conn.login(USERNAME, PASSWORD)     try:         conn.sendmail(sender, destination, msg.as_string())     finally:         conn.quit()  except:     sys.exit( 'mail failed; %s' % 'CUSTOM_ERROR' ) # give an error message