sending smtp mails from command line (python)

First of all, ruby 1.8.x does not have SSL working in SMTP, so forget connecting to smtp.gmail.com. Python and perl have it working beautifully. Here’s a quick example, modified slightly from what I found on the net.

#!/usr/bin/env python
# 2008-07-07 17:33
# use this to send a simple mail from your gmail account
import smtplib
import getpass

def prompt(prompt):
    return raw_input(prompt).strip()

fromaddr = prompt("Login Email Id: ")
name = prompt("My Display Name: ")
subject = prompt("Subject: ")
toaddrs  = prompt("To: ").split()
password = getpass.getpass("password: ")
print "Enter message, end with ^D (Unix) or ^Z (Windows):"

# Add the From: and To: headers at the start!
msg = ("From: %s\r\nTo: %s\r\nSubject: %s\r\n\r\n"
       % (name + "", ", ".join(toaddrs), subject))
while 1:
    try:
        line = raw_input()
    except EOFError:
        break
#    if not line:
#        break
    msg = msg + line + "\n"

print "Message length is " + repr(len(msg))

#server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com', 587)
server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com')
server.set_debuglevel(1)
server.ehlo()
server.starttls()
server.ehlo()
server.login(fromaddr, password)
server.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddrs, msg)
server.quit()

If you have only one gmail account, you can hardcode it here. I use this to send an email using an account I use (occasionally) for some fora, this avoids logging in and out of gmail on Firefox. It’s a basic version, no attachments etc.

[Edited in Vim using HTML.vim]

~~~
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
– John Keats

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Tags: command-line, smtp

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