How to send an email with Gmail as provider using

Question

I am trying to send email (Gmail) using python, but I am getting following error.

Traceback (most recent call last):  
File "emailSend.py", line 14, in <module>  
server.login(username,password)  
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/smtplib.py", line 554, in login  
raise SMTPException("SMTP AUTH extension not supported by server.")  
smtplib.SMTPException: SMTP AUTH extension not supported by server.

The Python script is the following.

import smtplib
fromaddr = '[e-mail]'
toaddrs  = '[e-mail]'
msg = 'Why,Oh why!'
username = '[e-mail]'
password = 'pwd'
server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')
server.starttls()
server.login(username,password)
server.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddrs, msg)
server.quit()

Answer 1

Seems like problem of the old smtplib. In python2.7 everything works fine.

Update: Yep, server.ehlo() also could help.

Answer 2

You down with OOP?

#!/usr/bin/env python


import smtplib

class Gmail(object):
    def __init__(self, email, password):
        self.email = email
        self.password = password
        self.server = 'smtp.gmail.com'
        self.port = 587
        session = smtplib.SMTP(self.server, self.port)        
        session.ehlo()
        session.starttls()
        session.ehlo
        session.login(self.email, self.password)
        self.session = session

    def send_message(self, subject, body):
        ''' This must be removed '''
        headers = [
            "From: " + self.email,
            "Subject: " + subject,
            "To: " + self.email,
            "MIME-Version: 1.0",
           "Content-Type: text/html"]
        headers = "\r\n".join(headers)
        self.session.sendmail(
            self.email,
            self.email,
            headers + "\r\n\r\n" + body)


gm = Gmail('Your Email', 'Password')

gm.send_message('Subject', 'Message')

Answer 3

Not directly related but still worth pointing out is that my package tries to make sending gmail messages really quick and painless. It also tries to maintain a list of errors and tries to point to the solution immediately.

It would literally only need this code to do exactly what you wrote:

import yagmail
yag = yagmail.SMTP('[e-mail]')
yag.send('[e-mail]', 'Why,Oh why!')

Or a one liner:

yagmail.SMTP('[e-mail]').send('[e-mail]', 'Why,Oh why!')

For the package/installation please look at git or pip, available for both Python 2 and 3.

Answer 4

great answer from @David, here is for Python 3 without the generic try-except:

def send_email(user, password, recipient, subject, body):

    gmail_user = user
    gmail_pwd = password
    FROM = user
    TO = recipient if type(recipient) is list else [recipient]
    SUBJECT = subject
    TEXT = body

    # Prepare actual message
    message = """From: %s\nTo: %s\nSubject: %s\n\n%s
    """ % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT)

    server = smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com", 587)
    server.ehlo()
    server.starttls()
    server.login(gmail_user, gmail_pwd)
    server.sendmail(FROM, TO, message)
    server.close()

Answer 5

    import smtplib

    fromadd='[e-mail]'
    toadd='[e-mail]'

    msg='''hi,how r u'''
    username='[e-mail]'
    passwd='password'

    try:
        server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')
        server.ehlo()
        server.starttls()
        server.login(username,passwd)

        server.sendmail(fromadd,toadd,msg)
        print("Mail Send Successfully")
        server.quit()

   except:
        print("Error:unable to send mail")

   NOTE:https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps that                                                         should be enabled

Answer 6

I ran into a similar problem and stumbled on this question. I got an SMTP Authentication Error but my user name / pass was correct. Here is what fixed it. I read this:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255

In a nutshell, google is not allowing you to log in via smtplib because it has flagged this sort of login as "less secure", so what you have to do is go to this link while you're logged in to your google account, and allow the access:

https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps

Once that is set (see my screenshot below), it should work.

Login now works:

smtpserver = smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com", 587)
smtpserver.ehlo()
smtpserver.starttls()
smtpserver.ehlo()
smtpserver.login('[e-mail]', 'me_pass')

Response after change:

(235, '2.7.0 Accepted')

Response prior:

smtplib.SMTPAuthenticationError: (535, '5.7.8 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at\n5.7.8 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=14257 g66sm2224117qgf.37 - gsmtp')

Still not working? If you still get the SMTPAuthenticationError but now the code is 534, its because the location is unknown. Follow this link:

https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

Click continue and this should give you 10 minutes for registering your new app. So proceed to doing another login attempt now and it should work.

UPDATE: This doesn't seem to work right away you may be stuck for a while getting this error in smptlib:

235 == 'Authentication successful'
503 == 'Error: already authenticated'

The message says to use the browser to sign in:

SMTPAuthenticationError: (534, '5.7.9 Please log in with your web browser and then try again. Learn more at\n5.7.9 https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=78754 qo11sm4014232igb.17 - gsmtp')

After enabling 'lesssecureapps', go for a coffee, come back, and try the 'DisplayUnlockCaptcha' link again. From user experience, it may take up to an hour for the change to kick in. Then try the sign-in process again.