path: root/docs/topics/email.txt

==============
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
e-mail 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 e-mail 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 <topic-email-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.

For example, the following code would send two different messages to
two different sets of recipients; however, only one connection to the
mail server would be opened::

    message1 = ('Subject here', 'Here is the message', 'from@example.com, ['first@example.com', 'other@example.com'])
    message2 = ('Another Subject', 'Here is another message', 'from@example.com', ['second@test.com'])
    send_mass_mail((message1, message2), fail_silently=False)

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 <topic-email-backends>` is then
responsible for sending the e-mail.

For convenience, :class:`~django.core.mail.EmailMessage` provides a simple
``send()`` method for sending a single e-mail. If you need to send multiple
messages, the e-mail backend API :ref:`provides an alternative
<topics-sending-multiple-emails>`.

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 <fred@example.com>`` 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 e-mail 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 = '<p>This is an <strong>important</strong> message.</p>'
    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 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 e-mail-sending connection.

    * ``close()`` closes the current e-mail-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
e-mail 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 e-mail 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 e-mail sending requirements, you
can :ref:`write your own e-mail backend <topic-custom-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_PORT`, :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.EmailBackend'

.. 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 e-mail. This class has been
    deprecated in favor of the generic e-mail 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.EmailBackend'

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.EmailBackend'
    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.EmailBackend'

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.EmailBackend'

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 sent 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 class.

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 ``smtp.EmailBackend`` for a reference
implementation.

.. _topics-sending-multiple-emails:

Sending multiple e-mails
------------------------

Establishing and closing an SMTP connection (or any other network connection,
for that matter) is an expensive process. If you have a lot of e-mails to send,
it makes sense to reuse an SMTP connection, rather than creating and
destroying a connection every time you want to send an e-mail.

There are two ways you tell an e-mail 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 e-mails using
a single call to send_messages::

    from django.core import mail
    connection = mail.get_connection()   # Use default e-mail 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
e-mail 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 e-mail message that uses the connection
    email1 = mail.EmailMessage('Hello', 'Body goes here', 'from@example.com',
                              ['to1@example.com'], connection=connection)
    email1.send() # Send the e-mail

    # 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 e-mails 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
======================

There 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``
e-mail backend. This backend redirects all e-mail to stdout, allowing you to
inspect the content of mail.

The ``file`` e-mail 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 e-mail
backend API.

For backwards compatibility ``SMTPConnection`` is still available in
``django.core.mail`` as an alias for the :ref:`SMTP backend
<topic-email-smtp-backend>`. New code should use
:meth:`~django.core.mail.get_connection` instead.