Learning Python Network Programming

Engaging with E-mails

Sending e-mail attachments

In the previous section, we have seen how plain text messages can be sent by using
the SMTP protocol. In this section, let us explore how to send attachments through
e-mail messages. We can use our second example, in which we have sent an e-mail
by using TLS, for this. While composing the e-mail message, in addition to adding a
plain text message, include the additional attachment field.

In this example, we can use the MIMEImage type for the email.mime.image sub-
module. A GIF type of image will be attached to the e-mail message. It is assumed
that a GIF image can be found anywhere in the file system path. This file path is
generally taken on the basis of the user input.

The following example shows how to send an attachment along with your
e-mail message:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import os

import getpass

import re

import sys

import smtplib

from email.mime.image import MIMEImage

from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart

from email.mime.text import MIMEText

SMTP_SERVER = 'aspmx.l.google.com'

SMTP_PORT = 25

def send_email(sender, recipient):

""" Sends email message """

msg = MIMEMultipart()

msg['To'] = recipient

msg['From'] = sender

subject = input('Enter your email subject: ')

msg['Subject'] = subject

message = input('Enter your email message. Press Enter when

finished. ')