Python - Send an email with attachments

Steps

0. End result. Email with 2 attachments. data1.csv, data2.csv

1. Create an app password on Gmail. https://myaccount.google.com/security

2. Make a new directory, cd into the folder and open VS code.

   $ mkdir python-send-email-with-attachments
   $ cd python-send-email-with-attachments
   $ code .
   

3. Create a new virtual env and activate it on terminal within VS Code.

   $ python3 -m venv venv
   $ source venv/bin/activate
   

4. Create gmail.py file, .env file and data files for testing on the root directory.

   .
   +-- gmail.py
   +-- .env
   +-- venv
   +-- data
       +-- data1.csv
       +-- data2.csv
   

5. Open .env and add variables.

   EMAIL_ID=youremail@gmail.com
   EMAIL_PASSWORD=app password 16 characters
   TO_EMAIL=test1@gmail.com;test2@gmail.com
   

6. install dotenv library to use .env file.

   $ pip install python-dotenv
   

7. Open gmail.py and copy/paste following codes.

   import os
   import smtplib
   import ssl
   from email import encoders
   from email.header import Header
   from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
   from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
   from email.mime.text import MIMEText
   from glob import glob
   from pathlib import Path
   
   from dotenv import load_dotenv
   
   load_dotenv()
   
   def email_with_attachment(header: str, recipient: list, body: str, attachments: list) -> None:
   port = 465  # For SSL
   smtp_server = "smtp.gmail.com"
   
   from_email = os.getenv("EMAIL_ID")
   email_password = os.getenv("EMAIL_PASSWORD")
   
   message = MIMEMultipart()
   message['From'] = from_email
   message['To'] = email_password
   message['Subject'] = Header(header, 'utf-8')
   
   if(attachments is not None):
       message.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain', 'utf-8'))
   
       for attachment in attachments:
           attachment = open(attachment, 'rb')
           attachment_name = os.path.basename(str(attachment.name))
   
           part = MIMEBase('application', 'octet-stream')
           part.set_payload(attachment.read())
           encoders.encode_base64(part)
           part.add_header('Content-Disposition',
                           'attachement; filename={}'.format(attachment_name))
           message.attach(part)
   
   context = ssl.create_default_context()
   
   with smtplib.SMTP_SSL(smtp_server, port, context=context) as server:
       server.login(from_email, email_password)
       server.sendmail(from_email, recipient, message.as_string())
   
   
   if __name__ == '__main__':
   
   to_email = os.getenv("TO_EMAIL").split(';')
   attachments = glob('data/*.csv')
   
   email_with_attachment(header='header...', recipient=to_email, body='body...', attachments=attachments)
   

8. Run gmai.py. Ctrl + F5 or Right click >> "Run Python File in Terminal" within VS Code.

Github

References

• https://realpython.com/python-send-email