Specify a sender when sending mail with Python (smtplib)

Hi,

I have a very simple piece of code (just for testing):

import smtplib
import time

server = 'smtp.myprovider.com'
recipients = ['johndoe@somedomain.com']
sender = 'me@mydomain.com'
message = 'Subject: [PGS]: Results\n\nBlaBlaBla'

session = smtplib.SMTP(server)

session.sendmail(sender,recipients,message);

This works but the problem is that e-mail clients don't display a sender. I want to be able to add a sender name to the e-mail. Suggestions?

From stackoverflow

• smtplib doesn't automatically include a From: header, so you have to put one in yourself:

  message = 'From: me@example.com\nSubject: [PGS]: Results\n\nBlaBlaBla'
  

  (In fact, smtplib doesn't include any headers automatically, but just sends the text that you give it as a raw message)

  ΤΖΩΤΖΙΟΥ : Perhaps explaining that smtplib does not automatically include *any* header would be even more helpful.

• You can utilize the email.message.Message class, and use it to generate mime headers, including from:, to: and subject. Send the as_string() result via SMTP.

  >>> from email import message
  >>> m1=message.Message()
  >>> m1.add_header('from','me@no.where')
  >>> m1.add_header('to','myself@some.where')
  >>> m1.add_header('subject','test')
  >>> m1.set_payload('test\n')
  >>> m1.as_string()
  'from: me@no.where\nto: myself@some.where\nsubject: test\n\ntest\n'
  >>>
  

• The "sender" you're specifying in this case is the envelope sender that is passed onto the SMTP server.

  What your MUA (Mail User Agent - i.e. outlook/Thunderbird etc.) shows you is the "From:" header.

  Normally, if I'm using smtplib, I'd compile the headers separately:

  headers = "From %s\nTo: %s\n\n" % (email_from, email_to)
  

  The format of the From header is by convention normally "Name" <user@domain>

  You should be including a "Message-Id" header and a "Reply-To" header as well in all communications. Especially since spam filters may pick up on the lack of these as a great probability that the mail is spam.

  If you've got your mail body in the variable body, just compile the overall message with:

  message = headers + body
  

  Note the double newline at the end of the headers. It's also worth noting that SMTP servers should separate headers with newlines only (i.e. LF - linfeed). However, I have seen a Windows SMTP server or two that uses \r\n (i.e. CRLF). If you're on Windows, YMMV.