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 <div class="section" id="email-examples">
<h1>19.1.8. <a class="reference internal" href="email.html#module-email" title="email: Package supporting the parsing, manipulating, and generating email messages."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">email</code></a>: Examples<a class="headerlink" href="#email-examples" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
Here are a few examples of how to use the <a class="reference internal" href="email.html#module-email" title="email: Package supporting the parsing, manipulating, and generating email messages."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">email</code></a> package to read, write,
and send simple email messages, as well as more complex MIME messages.
First, let’s see how to create and send a simple text message (both the
text content and the addresses may contain unicode characters):
<div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre># Import smtplib for the actual sending function
import smtplib

# Import the email modules we&#39;ll need
from email.message import EmailMessage

# Open the plain text file whose name is in textfile for reading.
with open(textfile) as fp:
 # Create a text/plain message
 msg = EmailMessage()
 msg.set_content(fp.read())

# me == the sender&#39;s email address
# you == the recipient&#39;s email address
msg[&#39;Subject&#39;] = &#39;The contents of %s&#39; % textfile
msg[&#39;From&#39;] = me
msg[&#39;To&#39;] = you

# Send the message via our own SMTP server.
s = smtplib.SMTP(&#39;localhost&#39;)
s.send_message(msg)
s.quit()
</pre></div>
</div>
Parsing <a class="rfc reference external" href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc822.html">RFC 822</a> headers can easily be done by the using the classes
from the <a class="reference internal" href="email.parser.html#module-email.parser" title="email.parser: Parse flat text email messages to produce a message object structure."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">parser</code></a> module:
<div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre># Import the email modules we&#39;ll need
from email.parser import BytesParser, Parser
from email.policy import default

# If the e-mail headers are in a file, uncomment these two lines:
# with open(messagefile, &#39;rb&#39;) as fp:
# headers = BytesParser(policy=default).parse(fp)

# Or for parsing headers in a string (this is an uncommon operation), use:
headers = Parser(policy=default).parsestr(
 &#39;From: Foo Bar &lt;user@example.com&gt;\n&#39;
 &#39;To: &lt;someone_else@example.com&gt;\n&#39;
 &#39;Subject: Test message\n&#39;
 &#39;\n&#39;
 &#39;Body would go here\n&#39;)

# Now the header items can be accessed as a dictionary:
print(&#39;To: {}&#39;.format(headers[&#39;to&#39;]))
print(&#39;From: {}&#39;.format(headers[&#39;from&#39;]))
print(&#39;Subject: {}&#39;.format(headers[&#39;subject&#39;]))

# You can also access the parts of the addresses:
print(&#39;Recipient username: {}&#39;.format(headers[&#39;to&#39;].addresses[0].username))
print(&#39;Sender name: {}&#39;.format(headers[&#39;from&#39;].addresses[0].display_name))
</pre></div>
</div>
Here’s an example of how to send a MIME message containing a bunch of family
pictures that may be residing in a directory:
<div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre># Import smtplib for the actual sending function
import smtplib

# And imghdr to find the types of our images
import imghdr

# Here are the email package modules we&#39;ll need
from email.message import EmailMessage

# Create the container email message.
msg = EmailMessage()
msg[&#39;Subject&#39;] = &#39;Our family reunion&#39;
# me == the sender&#39;s email address
# family = the list of all recipients&#39; email addresses
msg[&#39;From&#39;] = me
msg[&#39;To&#39;] = &#39;, &#39;.join(family)
msg.preamble = &#39;Our family reunion&#39;

# Open the files in binary mode. Use imghdr to figure out the
# MIME subtype for each specific image.
for file in pngfiles:
 with open(file, &#39;rb&#39;) as fp:
 img_data = fp.read()
 msg.add_attachment(img_data, maintype=&#39;image&#39;,
 subtype=imghdr.what(None, img_data))

# Send the email via our own SMTP server.
with smtplib.SMTP(&#39;localhost&#39;) as s:
 s.send_message(msg)
</pre></div>
</div>
Here’s an example of how to send the entire contents of a directory as an email
message: <a class="footnote-reference" href="#id3" id="id2">[1]</a>
<div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>#!/usr/bin/env python3

&quot;&quot;&quot;Send the contents of a directory as a MIME message.&quot;&quot;&quot;

import os
import smtplib
# For guessing MIME type based on file name extension
import mimetypes

from argparse import ArgumentParser

def main():
 parser = ArgumentParser(description=&quot;&quot;&quot;\
Send the contents of a directory as a MIME message.
Unless the -o option is given, the email is sent by forwarding to your local
SMTP server, which then does the normal delivery process. Your local machine
must be running an SMTP server.
&quot;&quot;&quot;)
 parser.add_argument(&#39;-d&#39;, &#39;--directory&#39;,
 help=&quot;&quot;&quot;Mail the contents of the specified directory,
 otherwise use the current directory. Only the regular
 files in the directory are sent, and we don&#39;t recurse to
 subdirectories.&quot;&quot;&quot;)
 parser.add_argument(&#39;-o&#39;, &#39;--output&#39;,
 metavar=&#39;FILE&#39;,
 help=&quot;&quot;&quot;Print the composed message to FILE instead of
 sending the message to the SMTP server.&quot;&quot;&quot;)
 parser.add_argument(&#39;-s&#39;, &#39;--sender&#39;, required=True,
 help=&#39;The value of the From: header (required)&#39;)
 parser.add_argument(&#39;-r&#39;, &#39;--recipient&#39;, required=True,
 action=&#39;append&#39;, metavar=&#39;RECIPIENT&#39;,
 default=[], dest=&#39;recipients&#39;,
 help=&#39;A To: header value (at least one required)&#39;)
 args = parser.parse_args()
 directory = args.directory
 if not directory:
 directory = &#39;.&#39;
 # Create the message
 msg = EmailMessage()
 msg[&#39;Subject&#39;] = &#39;Contents of directory %s&#39; % os.path.abspath(directory)
 msg[&#39;To&#39;] = &#39;, &#39;.join(args.recipients)
 msg[&#39;From&#39;] = args.sender
 msg.preamble = &#39;You will not see this in a MIME-aware mail reader.\n&#39;

for filename in os.listdir(directory):
 path = os.path.join(directory, filename)
 if not os.path.isfile(path):
 continue
 # Guess the content type based on the file&#39;s extension. Encoding
 # will be ignored, although we should check for simple things like
 # gzip&#39;d or compressed files.
 ctype, encoding = mimetypes.guess_type(path)
 if ctype is None or encoding is not None:
 # No guess could be made, or the file is encoded (compressed), so
 # use a generic bag-of-bits type.
 ctype = &#39;application/octet-stream&#39;
 maintype, subtype = ctype.split(&#39;/&#39;, 1)
 with open(path, &#39;rb&#39;) as fp:
 msg.add_attachment(fp.read(),
 maintype=maintype,
 subtype=subtype,
 filename=filename)
 # Now send or store the message
 if args.output:
 with open(args.output, &#39;wb&#39;) as fp:
 fp.write(msg.as_bytes(policy=SMTP))
 else:
 with smtplib.SMTP(&#39;localhost&#39;) as s:
 s.send_message(msg)

if __name__ == &#39;__main__&#39;:
 main()
</pre></div>
</div>
Here’s an example of how to unpack a MIME message like the one
above, into a directory of files:
<div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>#!/usr/bin/env python3

&quot;&quot;&quot;Unpack a MIME message into a directory of files.&quot;&quot;&quot;

import os
import email
import mimetypes

from email.policy import default

from argparse import ArgumentParser

with open(args.msgfile, &#39;rb&#39;) as fp:
 msg = email.message_from_binary_file(fp, policy=default)

try:
 os.mkdir(args.directory)
 except FileExistsError:
 pass

counter = 1
 for part in msg.walk():
 # multipart/* are just containers
 if part.get_content_maintype() == &#39;multipart&#39;:
 continue
 # Applications should really sanitize the given filename so that an
 # email message can&#39;t be used to overwrite important files
 filename = part.get_filename()
 if not filename:
 ext = mimetypes.guess_extension(part.get_content_type())
 if not ext:
 # Use a generic bag-of-bits extension
 ext = &#39;.bin&#39;
 filename = &#39;part-%03d%s&#39; % (counter, ext)
 counter += 1
 with open(os.path.join(args.directory, filename), &#39;wb&#39;) as fp:
 fp.write(part.get_payload(decode=True))

if __name__ == &#39;__main__&#39;:
 main()
</pre></div>
</div>
Here’s an example of how to create an HTML message with an alternative plain
text version. To make things a bit more interesting, we include a related
image in the html part, and we save a copy of what we are going to send to
disk, as well as sending it.
<div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>#!/usr/bin/env python3

import smtplib

from email.message import EmailMessage
from email.headerregistry import Address
from email.utils import make_msgid

# Create the base text message.
msg = EmailMessage()
msg[&#39;Subject&#39;] = &quot;Ayons asperges pour le déjeuner&quot;
msg[&#39;From&#39;] = Address(&quot;Pepé Le Pew&quot;, &quot;pepe&quot;, &quot;example.com&quot;)
msg[&#39;To&#39;] = (Address(&quot;Penelope Pussycat&quot;, &quot;penelope&quot;, &quot;example.com&quot;),
 Address(&quot;Fabrette Pussycat&quot;, &quot;fabrette&quot;, &quot;example.com&quot;))
msg.set_content(&quot;&quot;&quot;\
Salut!

Cela ressemble à un excellent recipie[1] déjeuner.

[1] http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Roasted-Asparagus-Epicurious-203718

--Pepé
&quot;&quot;&quot;)

# Add the html version. This converts the message into a multipart/alternative
# container, with the original text message as the first part and the new html
# message as the second part.
asparagus_cid = make_msgid()
msg.add_alternative(&quot;&quot;&quot;\
&lt;html&gt;
 &lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;
 &lt;body&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Salut!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Cela ressemble à un excellent
 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Roasted-Asparagus-Epicurious-203718&quot;&gt;
 recipie
 &lt;/a&gt; déjeuner.
 &lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;img src=&quot;cid:{asparagus_cid}&quot; /&gt;
 &lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;
&quot;&quot;&quot;.format(asparagus_cid=asparagus_cid[1:-1]), subtype=&#39;html&#39;)
# note that we needed to peel the &lt;&gt; off the msgid for use in the html.

# Now add the related image to the html part.
with open(&quot;roasted-asparagus.jpg&quot;, &#39;rb&#39;) as img:
 msg.get_payload()[1].add_related(img.read(), &#39;image&#39;, &#39;jpeg&#39;,
 cid=asparagus_cid)

# Make a local copy of what we are going to send.
with open(&#39;outgoing.msg&#39;, &#39;wb&#39;) as f:
 f.write(bytes(msg))

# Send the message via local SMTP server.
with smtplib.SMTP(&#39;localhost&#39;) as s:
 s.send_message(msg)
</pre></div>
</div>
If we were sent the message from the last example, here is one way we could
process it:
<div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>import os
import sys
import tempfile
import mimetypes
import webbrowser

# Import the email modules we&#39;ll need
from email import policy
from email.parser import BytesParser

# An imaginary module that would make this work and be safe.
from imaginary import magic_html_parser

# In a real program you&#39;d get the filename from the arguments.
with open(&#39;outgoing.msg&#39;, &#39;rb&#39;) as fp:
 msg = BytesParser(policy=policy.default).parse(fp)

# Now the header items can be accessed as a dictionary, and any non-ASCII will
# be converted to unicode:
print(&#39;To:&#39;, msg[&#39;to&#39;])
print(&#39;From:&#39;, msg[&#39;from&#39;])
print(&#39;Subject:&#39;, msg[&#39;subject&#39;])

# If we want to print a preview of the message content, we can extract whatever
# the least formatted payload is and print the first three lines. Of course,
# if the message has no plain text part printing the first three lines of html
# is probably useless, but this is just a conceptual example.
simplest = msg.get_body(preferencelist=(&#39;plain&#39;, &#39;html&#39;))
print()
print(&#39;&#39;.join(simplest.get_content().splitlines(keepends=True)[:3]))

ans = input(&quot;View full message?&quot;)
if ans.lower()[0] == &#39;n&#39;:
 sys.exit()

# We can extract the richest alternative in order to display it:
richest = msg.get_body()
partfiles = {}
if richest[&#39;content-type&#39;].maintype == &#39;text&#39;:
 if richest[&#39;content-type&#39;].subtype == &#39;plain&#39;:
 for line in richest.get_content().splitlines():
 print(line)
 sys.exit()
 elif richest[&#39;content-type&#39;].subtype == &#39;html&#39;:
 body = richest
 else:
 print(&quot;Don&#39;t know how to display {}&quot;.format(richest.get_content_type()))
 sys.exit()
elif richest[&#39;content-type&#39;].content_type == &#39;multipart/related&#39;:
 body = richest.get_body(preferencelist=(&#39;html&#39;))
 for part in richest.iter_attachments():
 fn = part.get_filename()
 if fn:
 extension = os.path.splitext(part.get_filename())[1]
 else:
 extension = mimetypes.guess_extension(part.get_content_type())
 with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix=extension, delete=False) as f:
 f.write(part.get_content())
 # again strip the &lt;&gt; to go from email form of cid to html form.
 partfiles[part[&#39;content-id&#39;][1:-1]] = f.name
else:
 print(&quot;Don&#39;t know how to display {}&quot;.format(richest.get_content_type()))
 sys.exit()
with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode=&#39;w&#39;, delete=False) as f:
 # The magic_html_parser has to rewrite the href=&quot;cid:....&quot; attributes to
 # point to the filenames in partfiles. It also has to do a safety-sanitize
 # of the html. It could be written using html.parser.
 f.write(magic_html_parser(body.get_content(), partfiles))
webbrowser.open(f.name)
os.remove(f.name)
for fn in partfiles.values():
 os.remove(fn)

# Of course, there are lots of email messages that could break this simple
# minded program, but it will handle the most common ones.
</pre></div>
</div>
Up to the prompt, the output from the above is:
<div class="highlight-none notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>To: Penelope Pussycat &lt;penelope@example.com&gt;, Fabrette Pussycat &lt;fabrette@example.com&gt;
From: Pepé Le Pew &lt;pepe@example.com&gt;
Subject: Ayons asperges pour le déjeuner

Salut!

Cela ressemble à un excellent recipie[1] déjeuner.
</pre></div>
</div>
Footnotes
<table class="docutils footnote" frame="void" id="id3" rules="none">
<colgroup><col class="label" /><col /></colgroup>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td class="label"><a class="fn-backref" href="#id2">[1]</a></td><td>Thanks to Matthew Dixon Cowles for the original inspiration and examples.</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>

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 <h4>Next topic</h4>
 <a href="email.compat32-message.html"
 title="next chapter">19.1.9. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">email.message.Message</code>: Representing an email message using the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">compat32</code> API</a>
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