This library allows you to quickly and easily send emails through SendGrid using Python.
Licensed under the MIT License.
Using Github:
git clone [email protected]:sendgrid/sendgrid-python.git
Using PyPI:
easy_install sendgrid
SendGrid provides two methods of sending email: the Web API, and SMTP API. SendGrid recommends using the SMTP API for sending emails, but the Web API has less communication overhead. For an explanation of the benefits of each, refer to http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/get-started/integrate/examples/smtp-vs-rest/.
This library implements a common interface to make it very easy to use either API.
Before we begin using the library, its important to understand a few things about the library architecture:
- Sending an email is as simple as :
- Creating a SendGrid Instance
- Creating a SendGrid Mail object, and setting its data
- Sending the mail using either SMTP API or Web API
import sendgrid
# make a secure connection to SendGrid
s = sendgrid.Sendgrid('username', 'password', secure=True)
# make a message object
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "message subject", "plaintext message body",
"<p>HTML message body</p>")
# add a recipient
message.add_to("[email protected]", "John Doe")
# use the Web API to send your message
s.web.send(message)Or change the last line to use the SMTP API instead:
# use the SMTP API to send your message
s.smtp.send(message)To add a 'name' to the From address, you can pass the first parameter to sendgrid.Message() as a tuple:
message = sendgrid.Message(("[email protected]","My Domain"), "message subject", "plaintext body",
"<p>HTML body</p>")To add a Reply-To address, you can call the message.set_replyto() method:
message = sendgrid.Message(("[email protected]","My Domain"), "message subject", "plaintext body",
"<p>HTML body</p>")
message.set_replyto("[email protected]")Note: Reply-To requires v0.1.3 or higher
Using the message.add_to() method, you can add recipient email address (optionally with names), but you can also add CC/BCC recipient addresses (without names) using message.add_cc() and message.add_bcc().
Note: Only the SMTP API supports CC at this time, though we have code and hooks in place for the Web API implementation of this library for future use.
Both the Web API and SMTP API support BCC.
The message.add_cc() and message.add_bcc() calls support passing a single address, or a list of addresses, as shown in the examples below.
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "message subject", "plaintext message body",
"<p>HTML message body</p>")
# add a To: recipient with a name
message.add_to("[email protected]", "John Doe")
# add a To: recipient without a name
message.add_to("[email protected]")
# add several To: recipients without names
message.add_to(["[email protected]", "[email protected]"])
# add several To: recipients with names
# note: count of assigned names must match the count of email addresses
message.add_to(["[email protected]", "[email protected]"], ["John Smith", "Jane Smith"])
# add a single CC: recipient by passing a string, SMTP API only
message.add_cc("[email protected]")
# add several CC: recipients by passing a list, SMTP API only
message.add_cc(["[email protected]","[email protected]"])
# add a single BCC: recipient by passing a string
message.add_bcc("[email protected]")
# add several BCC: recipients by passing a list
message.add_bcc(["[email protected]","[email protected]"])
# send message to To, CC and BCC recipients using SMTP API
s.smtp.send(message)
# send message to To and BCC recipients using Web API (no CC support)
s.web.send(message)Note: Using CC/BCC with SMTP API requires v0.1.3 or higher
Attaching files to your message uses the message.add_attachment() method. This method takes two parameters, the intended name of the attachment you want your recipients to see, and the full file system path to the file. Note: File attachments are limited to 7 MB per file, and your total message size must be under 20MB.
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "plain body", "<b>Html here</b>")
message.add_attachment("output_filename.doc", "/path/to/input_filename.doc")You can chain several file attachments together, provided you follow the restrictions of 7MB per file and a total size of 20MB or less per message.
message.add_attachment("output_file1.txt", "/path/to/file1.txt").add_attachment("output_file2.txt", "/path/to/file2.txt")A common problem with file attachments is that the second parameter does not exist as a file, in which case the library will attach a 0-byte blank file. Here's a simple check to assist you:
import sendgrid
import os
s = sendgrid.Sendgrid('username', 'password', secure=True)
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "message subject", "plaintext message body", "<p>HTML message body</p>")
message.add_to("[email protected]", "John Doe")
if os.path.isfile("/path/to/file1.txt"):
message.add_attachment("file.txt", "/path/to/file1.txt")
s.web.send(message)An optional third parameter can be passed to the message.add_attachment() call which lets you specify a Content-ID header for each file. The Content-ID is used to reference attached files (typically images) within the HTML message. For example:
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "message subject",
"I have attached my picture, I hope you like it",
"<p>Here is my inline picture<br><img src=\"cid:picture1\"><br>I hope you like it.</p>")
message.add_to("[email protected]", "John Doe")
message.add_attachment("my_picture.png", "/path/to/my_picture.png", "picture1")
s.web.send(message)You can mark messages with optional categories to give better visibility to email statistics (opens, clicks, etc.). You can add up to 10 categories per email message. You can read more about Categories here: http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/delivery-metrics/categories/
To add categories to your message, use the message.add_category() method and pass a list of one or more category names. SendGrid will begin tracking statistics with these category names if the category name is new, or aggregate statistics for existing category names.
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "plain body", "<b>Html here</b>")
message.add_category(["Category 1", "Category 2"])Unique Arguments are used for tracking purposes on the message, and can be seen in the Email Activity screen on your account dashboard or through the Event API. Use the message.add_unique_argument() method, which takes two parameters, a key and a value. To pass multiple keys/values, use message.add_unique_arguments() (note the plural method name) and pass a dictionary of key/value pairs. More information can be found here: http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/api/smtp-api/developers-guide/unique-arguments/
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "plain body", "<b>Html here</b>")
# set 'Customer' to a value of 'Someone'
message.add_unique_argument("Customer", "Someone")Alternately, you can pass a dict parameter and add multiple arguments using message.add_unique_arguments() like this:
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "plain body", "<b>Html here</b>")
# set multiple unique arguments for a message
message.add_unique_arguments({"customerAccountNumber": "55555", "activationAttempt": "1"})SendGrid also allows you to send multi-recipient messages with unique information per recipient. This is commonly used for sending unique URLs or codes to a list of recipients in a single batch. You simply expand the data you pass to the message.add_to() method like the example below. You can read more about Substitutions here: http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/api/smtp-api/developers-guide/substitution-tags/
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "Hello %name%, your code is %code%", "<b>Hello %name%, your code is %code%</b>")
message.add_to(
{
'[email protected]': {'%name%': 'Name 1', '%code%': 'Code 1'},
'[email protected]': {'%name%': 'Name 2', '%code%': 'Code 2'},
}
)Used in conjunction with Substitutions, Sections can be used to further customize messages for the end users, and acts like a second tier of substitution data. You can use message.set_section() to add a single section, or a pluralized message.set_sections() method to add several sections. You can read more about using Sections here: http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/api/smtp-api/developers-guide/section-tags/
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "Hello %name%, you work at %place%",
"<b>Hello %name%, you work at %place%</b>")
message.add_to(
{
'[email protected]': {'%name%': 'Name 1', '%place%': '%home%'},
'[email protected]': {'%name%': 'Name 2', '%place%': '%office%'},
'[email protected]': {'%name%': 'Name 3', '%place%': '%office%'},
}
).set_sections({"%office%": "an office", "%home%": "your house"})Custom SMTP headers can be added as necessary using the message.add_header() method.
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "plain body", "<b>Html here</b>")
message.add_header("X-Mailer", "MyApp")Filter Settings are used to enable and disable apps, and to pass parameters to those apps. You can read more here: http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/api/smtp-api/filter-settings/ Here's an example of passing content to the 'footer' app:
message = sendgrid.Message("[email protected]", "subject", "plain body", "<b>Html here</b>")
message.add_filter_setting("footer", "text/plain", "Here is a plain text footer")
message.add_filter_setting("footer", "text/html", "<p style='color:red;'>Here is an HTML footer</p>")