BC Robotics

Sending An Email Using Python On The Raspberry Pi

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Wouldn’t it be nice if your project could email you when it is done a task, has a problem, or just randomly thought the day? Well, with the Raspberry Pi, this is something that can be easily set up with a little Python code and an extra Gmail account. In this tutorial we will go through the steps of setting up a chunk of code that can be easily configured to send an email on command in any Python project! 

There are a lot of different operating systems out there for the Raspberry Pi, so we are going to focus on the most popular: Raspbian. We are using the version dated: 2019-7-10 (Pi 4 Compatible) available from the Raspberry Pi Foundations’ Download Page. You don’t need to use the Raspberry Pi 4, any Raspberry Pi will do. However, deviating from the recommended operating system version may result in different / additional steps so if you are very new to this, we recommend following the tutorial exactly. 

Requirements:

This tutorial requires several items:

0%

Step 1 - Get Everything Prepared

In this short tutorial, we are going to get started with the assumption that you have already set up your Raspberry Pi, installed Raspbian, and have your Python3 editor of choice open and ready to go. 

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Step 2 - How it works

Sending an email with the Pi using Python isn’t that difficult. We are going to create the email content in code and use an external email provider to act as the mail server send the email. Because we are using code to generate the email, we can dynamically create the content we send based on sensor readings, time of day, or just about anything else you can imagine! In this example we are going to use Google / Gmail to provide email services. We will create a Gmail account specifically for this device and give the Pi permission to send with this account. 

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Step 3 – Create a Gmail Account

Head on over to Gmail and create a new email account. You may need to sign out if you are already logged in with an existing account. Once that is completed – move on to step 4!  

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Step 4 – Set Gmail Permissions

To allow a device to use your Gmail account you will need to have 2-factor authentication enabled. This can be done through your Google Account under the Security tab – https://myaccount.google.com/security .

Once logged in, enable 2-Step Verification (if it is not already enabled). 

Once 2-Step Authentication is enabled, we can create an App Password specific to the Raspberry Pi we are sending emails from. This ensures the account password / Gmail password does not need to be stored in plain text in your code, just a device specific password. 

Click on “App Passwords” 

In the App Passwords screen, click the “Select Device” dropdown, and select “Other”

In the text box that appears, name your device. This name is just for your reference, so make it something meaningful. Once that is done, click “Generate” to create the App Password. 

Copy the password that appears – and paste it somewhere temporary while we get the code organized. This is going to be used as your Gmail Password when connecting from this device. 

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Step 5 – Coding

With Gmail set up, we are now going to write some basic code. The idea is that this code can be cut and pasted into a project without much need to modify it. We will start with the defining the server connection information and then move on to writing the sender. The sender will take dynamically generated information and use that for the subject line and content of the email. Time to open your favorite Python editor!  

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Step 6 – SMTP Library

				
					import smtplib

First we are going to start by adding in the smtp library reference. This gives us the email tools we are going to need. 

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Step 7 – Email Variables

				
					import smtplib

#Email Variables
SMTP_SERVER = 'smtp.gmail.com' #Email Server (don't change!)
SMTP_PORT = 587 #Server Port (don't change!)
GMAIL_USERNAME = 'youremail@email.com' #change this to match your gmail account
GMAIL_PASSWORD = 'yourPassword' #change this to match your gmail app-password

We need to store a bunch of information for sending out emails as well. The SMTP Server and SMTP port are not going to change, but be sure to update the email address and password in your code to match the credentials for the Gmail account you created earlier.  

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Step 8 – Email Sender

				
					import smtplib

#Email Variables
SMTP_SERVER = 'smtp.gmail.com' #Email Server (don't change!)
SMTP_PORT = 587 #Server Port (don't change!)
GMAIL_USERNAME = 'youremail@email.com' #change this to match your gmail account
GMAIL_PASSWORD = 'yourPassword' #change this to match your gmail app-password

class Emailer:
    def sendmail(self, recipient, subject, content):

    #Create Headers
    headers = ["From: " + GMAIL_USERNAME, "Subject: " + subject, "To: " + recipient,
        "MIME-Version: 1.0", "Content-Type: text/html"]
    headers = "\r\n".join(headers)

    #Connect to Gmail Server
    session = smtplib.SMTP(SMTP_SERVER, SMTP_PORT)
    session.ehlo()
    session.starttls()
    session.ehlo()

    #Login to Gmail
    session.login(GMAIL_USERNAME, GMAIL_PASSWORD)
    
    #Send Email & Exit
    session.sendmail(GMAIL_USERNAME, recipient, headers + "\r\n\r\n" + content)
    session.quit

sender = Emailer()

Next, we are going to write the chunk of code that actually sends the email. This creates the email, formats it correctly, creates the connection to Gmail, logs in, and sends the email. It is quite a few lines of code so we are going to put it into a custom Class – that way we can write this code once, but call it any time we want to send an email in our program. There isn’t anything to modify in this section of code so just copy it exactly. 

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Step 9 – Email Contents

				
					import smtplib
 
#Email Variables
SMTP_SERVER = 'smtp.gmail.com' #Email Server (don't change!)
SMTP_PORT = 587 #Server Port (don't change!)
GMAIL_USERNAME = 'youremail@email.com' #change this to match your gmail account
GMAIL_PASSWORD = 'yourPassword'  #change this to match your gmail app-password
 
class Emailer:
    def sendmail(self, recipient, subject, content):
         
        #Create Headers
        headers = ["From: " + GMAIL_USERNAME, "Subject: " + subject, "To: " + recipient,
                   "MIME-Version: 1.0", "Content-Type: text/html"]
        headers = "\r\n".join(headers)
 
        #Connect to Gmail Server
        session = smtplib.SMTP(SMTP_SERVER, SMTP_PORT)
        session.ehlo()
        session.starttls()
        session.ehlo()
 
        #Login to Gmail
        session.login(GMAIL_USERNAME, GMAIL_PASSWORD)
 
        #Send Email & Exit
        session.sendmail(GMAIL_USERNAME, recipient, headers + "\r\n\r\n" + content)
        session.quit
 
sender = Emailer()
 
sendTo = 'anotheremail@email.com'
emailSubject = "Hello World"
emailContent = "This is a test of my Emailer Class"

The Class we wrote in the last step sends out the email. The class takes three arguments (pieces of information we specify when we use the code to send an email) and constructs the email before sending. These three external components are the recipient of the email, a subject line for the email, and the text you want to have in the body of the email. These three pieces of information are stored in three variables (sendTo, emailSubject, and emailContent). This way, our code is capable of sending emails to different people, with different subject lines, and different email content without having to write a different sender for each new contact / email message. Add the three variables and be sure to set the recipient to somewhere you want to receive your first test email.

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Step 10 – Calling the Email Class

				
					import smtplib
 
#Email Variables
SMTP_SERVER = 'smtp.gmail.com' #Email Server (don't change!)
SMTP_PORT = 587 #Server Port (don't change!)
GMAIL_USERNAME = 'youremail@email.com' #change this to match your gmail account
GMAIL_PASSWORD = 'yourPassword'  #change this to match your gmail app-password
 
class Emailer:
    def sendmail(self, recipient, subject, content):
         
        #Create Headers
        headers = ["From: " + GMAIL_USERNAME, "Subject: " + subject, "To: " + recipient,
                   "MIME-Version: 1.0", "Content-Type: text/html"]
        headers = "\r\n".join(headers)
 
        #Connect to Gmail Server
        session = smtplib.SMTP(SMTP_SERVER, SMTP_PORT)
        session.ehlo()
        session.starttls()
        session.ehlo()
 
        #Login to Gmail
        session.login(GMAIL_USERNAME, GMAIL_PASSWORD)
 
        #Send Email & Exit
        session.sendmail(GMAIL_USERNAME, recipient, headers + "\r\n\r\n" + content)
        session.quit
 
sender = Emailer()
 
sendTo = 'anotheremail@email.com'
emailSubject = "Hello World"
emailContent = "This is a test of my Emailer Class"
 
#Sends an email to the "sendTo" address with the specified "emailSubject" as the subject and "emailContent" as the email content.
sender.sendmail(sendTo, emailSubject, emailContent)

Now that we have everything set up – sending an email is as simple as calling the Emailer Class with the three arguments (sendTo, emailSubject, and emailContent). It will then create and send the email based on those parameters. 

Run this code by hitting “F5” on the keyboard, an email should be received at the receiving address a moment later – as simple as that. Going forwards, you can copy and paste this code into a Python 3 project to provide email sending capabilities with ease!

100%

An Example: Email on Button Press

				
					import smtplib
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
  
#Email Variables
SMTP_SERVER = 'smtp.gmail.com' #Email Server (don't change!)
SMTP_PORT = 587 #Server Port (don't change!)
GMAIL_USERNAME = 'youremail@email.com' #change this to match your gmail account
GMAIL_PASSWORD = 'yourPassword'  #change this to match your gmail app-password
 
#Set GPIO pins to use BCM pin numbers
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
 
#Set digital pin 17(BCM) to an input
GPIO.setup(17, GPIO.IN)
 
#Set digital pin 17(BCM) to an input and enable the pullup 
GPIO.setup(17, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down=GPIO.PUD_UP)
 
#Event to detect button press
GPIO.add_event_detect(17, GPIO.FALLING)
 
  
class Emailer:
    def sendmail(self, recipient, subject, content):
          
        #Create Headers
        headers = ["From: " + GMAIL_USERNAME, "Subject: " + subject, "To: " + recipient,
                   "MIME-Version: 1.0", "Content-Type: text/html"]
        headers = "\r\n".join(headers)
  
        #Connect to Gmail Server
        session = smtplib.SMTP(SMTP_SERVER, SMTP_PORT)
        session.ehlo()
        session.starttls()
        session.ehlo()
  
        #Login to Gmail
        session.login(GMAIL_USERNAME, GMAIL_PASSWORD)
  
        #Send Email & Exit
        session.sendmail(GMAIL_USERNAME, recipient, headers + "\r\n\r\n" + content)
        session.quit
  
sender = Emailer()
 
while True:
    if GPIO.event_detected(17):
        sendTo = 'anotheremail@email.com'
        emailSubject = "Button Press Detected!"
        emailContent = "The button has been pressed at: " + time.ctime()
        sender.sendmail(sendTo, emailSubject, emailContent)
        print("Email Sent")
 
    time.sleep(0.1)

Here is a quick example of this code being used to send an email anytime a button is pressed. To try it out, connect a momentary button to GPIO 17 and GND. You will also need to change your Gmail Sender Email and app-password, along with the recipient at the bottom. 

Once the email and password fields are updated, run this code by hitting “F5” on the keyboard. When the button is depressed, an email should be received at the receiving address a moment later with the time the button was pressed. 

38 thoughts on “Sending An Email Using Python On The Raspberry Pi”

Santhosh

hello,
hope you are doing good.i have gone through the your blog ,it was very informative and it works great.thanks for sharing your knowledge.
i have a question for you.
how to send attachments using pi

Reply

    BrianT

    Been using this Python script for almost 2 years now in multiple scenarios. However, just read the following disappointing Google Gmail news!
    “Less secure apps & your Google Gmail Account

    To help keep your account secure, starting May 30, 2022, ​​Google will no longer support the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account using only your username and password.”

    Does anyone know of a workaround for continuing to use Gmail?

    Reply

      Chris @ BCR

      Yeah it is really disappointing – we are currently looking for an alternative

      Reply

        BrianT

        CHRIS @ BCR
        Found the fix and it works!
        1. Need to turn on 2-factor authentication for your Gmail account.
        2. Create Gmail Third party App password for that account.
        3. Paste new generated 16 character password where original Gmail password is.
        See YouTube video for dealing with copiers that Scan to email. Same issue. Followed instructions on video for configuring Gmail correctly.
        YouTube video:https://youtu.be/M0wSV86Q_9M

        Reply

Rob Cranfill

Very nice, thanks! I have a Pi running various home automation tasks (using Home Assistant) and a few other server-y things; being able to email status reports out will be very useful.

Reply

Trent

hi there, great tutorial, easy to follow and attempt.

when I tried to run the script @1028 on 06-05-2020 I receive the following

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/home/pi/code/startup_mailer_3.py”, line 37, in
sender.sendmail(sendTo, emailSubject, emailContent)
File “/home/pi/code/startup_mailer_3.py”, line 24, in sendmail
session.login(GMAIL_USERNAME, GMAIL_PASSWORD)
File “/usr/lib/python3.7/smtplib.py”, line 730, in login
raise last_exception
File “/usr/lib/python3.7/smtplib.py”, line 721, in login
initial_response_ok=initial_response_ok)
File “/usr/lib/python3.7/smtplib.py”, line 642, in auth
raise SMTPAuthenticationError(code, resp)
smtplib.SMTPAuthenticationError: (535, b’5.7.8 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at\n5.7.8 https://support.google.com/mail/?p=BadCredentials k12sm2343513pfp.158 – gsmtp’)

Reply

Nils

Thanks for this great tutorial. Just what I need to complete my weather station.
I have a RPi with a BME280 sensor reading temp,humidity and air pressure using a small Python program. How can I integrate this little weather sensor with the mail sending program ?
Can I copy/paste the weather sensor program into the mail sender or should it be in it’s own file ? I want to send data via mail every hour.

regards,
Nils

Reply

Jim Clevenstine

I’ve never used a Raspberry Pi before and I’m considering a project, but would like to know if it’s reasonable for a Raspberry Pi. It involves sending email so your tutorial is great! As background, I have a small engineering consulting business. I created a commitment tracking system (MS Access) to track my open tasks for my clients. I can set up my tracking system to automatically generate a pdf report for each client showing the status of each commitment. I’d like to automatically sent that commitment status report to each client (email) each week. I can set up MS Access to automatically generate an email to each client, but the security provision in Windows 10 require me to acknowledge each email as it goes out. I want the emails to be truly automatic, so I’m wondering about using Raspberry Pi. I can have my Access database generate the pdf reports and store them somewhere in my LAN. I can have the Access database export a file (Excel, CSV) containing the email information; each client would be a row and that row would contain the To Address, CC Addresses, Subject, Body, and PDF report filename. Can I set up Raspberry Pi to automatically (2:am Monday mornings) generate and send an email, with the PDF attachment, to each client? I certainly don’t expect you to tell me how, but I’d like to know I’m chasing down a path that should have a good ending. Can you suggest a good beginner’s book for Raspberry Pi, one that might touch on the topics I’ll need for this task? I have experience with Arduino but suspect this will be a stretch for Arduino. Thank you.

Reply

    Chris @ BCR

    Hi Jim,

    I don’t think you are too far off base with the idea. Ideally you would just set up the Pi as the network save location. The script would need to open the CSV file, parse through, and send each email with the attachment. You can probably use our Sending An Email With Attached Photo tutorial to get the email sending portion figured out. Pulling the data from a CSV is probably very well documented in Python so that shouldn’t be too difficult to work in.

    The scheduling is actually the easiest part – a CRON job on the Pi should solve that – which we have a tutorial on as well

    Books – I couldn’t make a recommendation myself, but definitely have a look at the Pi Foundation’s online guides.

    Best of luck!

    Reply

Jim Clevenstine

Thank you very much for your response and the suggestions! I’m anxious to start.
Jim

Reply

Dennis Douglas

Hi Jim:

As you suggest, I got a Google Mail address and verified it by sending messages to it from my Mac and sending mail to my Mac from the gmail address. I copied and pasted your code into my Pi/Python, changing the personal information (username & password) as you indicated, and used my regular email as the <'sendTo adress. It doesn't work. I received no email from the test message and there were no error messages. I DID change to Google thing to allow less secure usage, and I verified that my username and password were entered correctly. Where would you suggest that I start looking for a problem?

Reply

    Chris @ BCR

    The method definitely works – I have several devices mailing me every day using this code. Do you have the pushbutton hooked up correctly to trigger the event?

    Reply

Eduard

Thanks for a great tutorial. I found the ‘cut and paste’ did not work very well as I received several errors on various lines with “Unidentified characters”. Retyping the lines manually fixed the problem. Success in sending email. Now to learn how to send the data I require from a log.txt file.

Reply

huckleberrry

from where do you import the smtplib because mine just says bash import command not found

Reply

    Kelly Mayo

    You must be inside python to run these commands. It sounds like you are at the command prompt. Use Thonny, under your Application Menu, under Programming, Thonny Python IDE.

    Hope that helps

    Reply

Mads

Excelent tutorial! This “just worked” 🙂
Thanks

Reply

Muhammad Rafie Sazali

Excelent tutorial,
Question:
how do i put numbers in the mail content,
example:
emailContent = “TIME RECORDED : ” (number)

is it like this?

Reply

Ola Dunk

Thanks. This tutorial worked the first time I tried it. Very impressive.

Reply

BrianT

Was so surprised (being a newbie) this project worked first time I tried it.

Only problem having; every time button is pressed, it’s sending 2 or 3 emails, instead of just 1. Tried using different switches, but seeing same issue.

Is there a way to deal with this switch bouncing?

Reply

    Jorge Ramirez

    Im triying to use time.sleep or playing with the while true, adding timmers, and change it to momentary button pressed.

    Reply

Dan Fink

Extremely helpful for this beginner! I now have my weather station emailing me detailed reports daily.

Reply

Alsrulez

Hi im testing this out but I have run into a problem. Whenever I run it it says “Emailer is not defined” cant figure out what the problem is

Reply

    Matt

    @Alsrulez

    Check that your code says “sendmail” and not “send(e)mail”; I had the same issue.

    Reply

Andy

Thank you for the code you provided. It’s working fine.
But in my browser (Firefox or Chromium), I can’t see the necessary indentations in the code.

Reply

BrianT

Anyone know how to send to multiple email recipients?
sendTo = ‘janedoe@email.com’ , ‘johndoe@email.com’
or
sendTo = ‘janedoe@email.com , johndoe@email.com‘
or
sendTo = ‘janedoe@email.com ; johndoe@email.com‘

Doesn’t work…

Reply

    Chris @ BCR

    Hey Brian,

    Does the email need to send as a single email with all of the contacts in the “To” address, or could multiple emails be sent (one to each in your list) one after another?

    Cheers,

    Reply

      BrianT

      Hi Chris,

      Does the email need to send as a single email with all of the contacts in the “To” address?
      No it does not.

      Could multiple emails be sent (one to each in your list) one after another?
      YES, absolutely!

      Thank you for replying.

      Reply

        Chris @ BCR

        You could encapsulate the send method within a for loop and use a list of email addresses:

        addressList = ["johndoe@email.com", "janedoe@email.com"]

        for a in addressList:
        sender.sendmail(a, emailSubject, emailContent)

        not sure how gmail will react to the rapid fire emails, you may need a delay in there to slow it down

        Reply

          BrianT

          Well…one way to find out, will try it.
          Thanks Chris,

Pierre

This code works on Raspberry Pi 0 W with Raspbian 10 buster.
Thank you

Reply

Joe

Well explained, Simple and most importantly it works-First time!
After many attempts to send emails by python I finally found a program that works.
I was beginning to believe it wasn’t possible.

Thanks You very much!
Joe

Reply

David Flannery

I had this working for months using the app password for my gmail account. The last few days it got intermittent and then today it just doesn’t work at all. It’s failing at the smtplib.SMTP call. I’ve tried getting a fresh app password but that didn’t fix it. Has there been a change or problem with smtp.gmail.com ?

Reply

    Chris @ BCR

    Hi David,

    I have a few systems running 24/7 and haven’t noticed any interruptions – leaning towards it being something local to your setup. Keep us posted!

    Reply

Alan Malsher

Great explanation and it works!
But no explanation of how to send a CC or BCC copy.
Any suggestions?

Reply

Steve

Thought I was going to have to setup my own mail server but this works a treat, thanks!

Reply

Daniel Diana

This code works great, but I’m getting a lot of false inputs which in turn send me an email without the switch physically closing.
Does any one know why this would happen. I have even installed a pull up resistor to try and fix the problem with no success.
Look forward to any ideas you guys may have.

Reply

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