Send Emails with Python

Sometimes we can be in a situation where we need to send emails to multiple people in a personalized way. Although these emails follow the same format, the information they contain varies from recipient to recipient. In this article, I will explain to you how we can send emails with Python.

Sending emails manually takes time and there is a lot of room for error. Python allows us to automate this process very easily, let’s see how we can send emails with Python.

Also, Read – Most Important Python AutoML Libraries.

How To Send Emails with Python?

As the python script will access the Gmail account to send emails, we need to turn to Allow less secure apps to ON in this account. This will make it easier for our python program to access your account. Therefore, it is recommended to create a temporary account for this purpose.

Next, to send emails with Python, we need to create a text file named template.txt. This text file contains the format of the body of the email:

Dear ${PERSON_NAME},
You have secured the following marks in your mid-term exams:
Math - ${MATH}
English - ${ENG}
Science - ${SCI}Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Then the next file you should have is a CSV file. The file I’ll be using has the details that need to fill in the placeholders in the template file. It contains the details that should be sent to the recipients. It can be an Excel file or a CSV file.

Let’s Code

Once the CSV file and template file are ready, now it’s time to write the code to send custom emails with python. Let’s start by importing the necessary modules:

import smtplib
import csv
from string import Template
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMETextCode language: JavaScript (javascript)

Now I will create a function to read the template.txt file. The function below returns the template object containing the contents of the template.txt file:

def read_template(filename):
   with open(filename, ‘r’, encoding=’utf-8') as template_file:
   template_file_content = template_file.read()
   return Template(template_file_content)

Now we need to configure the SMTP server. It is not a good practice to include the account address, password in the script if you are going to share this script with others. Instead, use input () to allow the user to enter their password when running the script:

MY_ADDRESS = *********@gmail.com  #your gmail account address
PASSWORD = ***********           #your password
s = smtplib.SMTP(host=’smtp.gmail.com’, port=587)
s.starttls()
s.login(MY_ADDRESS, PASSWORD)Code language: PHP (php)

Now the last step is to build the body of the email. For this task, we must:

Browse the CSV file and create a message for each line of the CSV file.
Create a message using the MIMEMultipart () function, replace the details (of each line) in the template to form the body of the message, and save it in the message variable.
Then configure parameters such as from and to address, subject of the message. Attach the message variable to the body of the message.
Finally, send the message via the send_message () function.

# read the message template
message_template = read_template(‘template.txt’)
with open(“details.csv”, “r”) as csv_file:
 csv_reader = csv.reader(csv_file, delimiter=’,’)
 # skip the first row as it is the header
 next(csv_reader)
 for row in csv_reader:
   msg = MIMEMultipart() # create a message
# add in the actual person name to the message template
   message=
   message_template.substitute(PERSON_NAME=row[0],MATH=row[2],
   ENG=row[3],SCI=row[4])
   
   # Prints out the message body for our sake
   print(message)
# setup the parameters of the message
   msg[‘From’]=MY_ADDRESS
   msg[‘To’]=lines[1]
   msg[‘Subject’]=”Mid term grades”
# add in the message body
   msg.attach(MIMEText(message, ‘plain’))
# send the message via the server set up earlier.
   s.send_message(msg)
   del msg
 
# Terminate the SMTP session and close the connection
s.quit()Code language: PHP (php)

So here is your final code that you need to run:

Finally, don’t forget to close the SMTP connection after sending all messages. Hope you liked this article on how to send personalized emails with Python. Please feel free to ask your valuable questions in the comments section below.

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