Send Outlook Email Via Python?

I am using Outlook 2003.

What is the best way to send email (through Outlook 2003) using Python?

import win32com.client as win32
outlook = win32.Dispatch('outlook.application')
mail = outlook.CreateItem(0)
mail.To = 'To address'
mail.Subject = 'Message subject'
mail.Body = 'Message body'
mail.HTMLBody = '<h2>HTML Message body</h2>' #this field is optional

# To attach a file to the email (optional):
attachment  = "Path to the attachment"
mail.Attachments.Add(attachment)

mail.Send()

Will use your local outlook account to send.

Note if you are trying to do something not mentioned above, look at the COM docs properties/methods: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vba/outlook-vba/articles/mailitem-object-outlook. In the code above, mail is a MailItem Object.

For a solution that uses outlook see TheoretiCAL's answer.

Otherwise, use the smtplib that comes with python. Note that this will require your email account allows smtp, which is not necessarily enabled by default.

SERVER = "smtp.example.com"
FROM = "[email protected]"
TO = ["listOfEmails"] # must be a list

SUBJECT = "Subject"
TEXT = "Your Text"

# Prepare actual message
message = """From: %s\r\nTo: %s\r\nSubject: %s\r\n\

%s
""" % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT)

# Send the mail
import smtplib
server = smtplib.SMTP(SERVER)
server.sendmail(FROM, TO, message)
server.quit()

EDIT: this example uses reserved domains like described in RFC2606

SERVER = "smtp.example.com"
FROM = "[email protected]"
TO = ["[email protected]"] # must be a list

SUBJECT = "Hello!"
TEXT = "This is a test of emailing through smtp of example.com."

# Prepare actual message
message = """From: %s\r\nTo: %s\r\nSubject: %s\r\n\

%s
""" % (FROM, ", ".join(TO), SUBJECT, TEXT)

# Send the mail
import smtplib
server = smtplib.SMTP(SERVER)
server.login("MrDoe", "PASSWORD")
server.sendmail(FROM, TO, message)
server.quit()

_{For it to actually work with gmail, Mr. Doe will need to go to the options tab in gmail and set it to allow smtp connections.}

Note the addition of the login line to authenticate to the remote server. The original version does not include this, an oversight on my part.

Check via Google, there are lots of examples, see here for one.

Inlined for ease of viewing:

import win32com.client
 
def send_mail_via_com(text, subject, recipient, profilename="Outlook2003"):
    s = win32com.client.Dispatch("Mapi.Session")
    o = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application")
    s.Logon(profilename)
    
    Msg = o.CreateItem(0)
    Msg.To = recipient
    
    Msg.CC = "moreaddresses here"
    Msg.BCC = "address"
    
    Msg.Subject = subject
    Msg.Body = text
    
    attachment1 = "Path to attachment no. 1"
    attachment2 = "Path to attachment no. 2"
    Msg.Attachments.Add(attachment1)
    Msg.Attachments.Add(attachment2)
 
    Msg.Send()

using pywin32:

from win32com.client import Dispatch

session = Dispatch('MAPI.session')
session.Logon('','',0,1,0,0,'exchange.foo.com\nUserName');
msg = session.Outbox.Messages.Add('Hello', 'This is a test')
msg.Recipients.Add('Corey', 'SMTP:[email protected]')
msg.Send()
session.Logoff()

I wanted to send email using SMTPLIB, its easier and it does not require local setup. After other answers were not directly helpful, This is what i did.

Open Outlook in a browser; Go to the top right corner, click the gear icon for Settings, Choose 'Options' from the appearing drop-down list. Go to 'Accounts', click 'Pop and Imap', You will see the option: "Let devices and apps use pop",

Choose Yes option and Save changes.

Here is the code there after; Edit where neccesary. Most Important thing is to enable POP and the server code herein;

import smtplib

body = 'Subject: Subject Here .\nDear ContactName, \n\n' + 'Email\'s BODY text' + '\nYour :: Signature/Innitials'
try:
    smtpObj = smtplib.SMTP('smtp-mail.outlook.com', 587)
except Exception as e:
    print(e)
    smtpObj = smtplib.SMTP_SSL('smtp-mail.outlook.com', 465)
#type(smtpObj) 
smtpObj.ehlo()
smtpObj.starttls()
smtpObj.login('[email protected]', "password") 
smtpObj.sendmail('[email protected]', '[email protected]', body) # Or recipient@outlook

smtpObj.quit()
pass

A simple solution for Office 365 is

from O365 import Message

html_template = 	""" 
			<html>
			<head>
				<title></title>
			</head>
			<body>
					{}
			</body>
			</html>
		"""

final_html_data = html_template.format(df.to_html(index=False))

o365_auth = ('sender_username@company_email.com','Password')
m = Message(auth=o365_auth)
m.setRecipients('receiver_username@company_email.com')
m.setSubject('Weekly report')
m.setBodyHTML(final)
m.sendMessage()

Here df is a dataframe converted to an html Table, which is being injected into html_template

Other than win32, if your company had set up you web outlook, you can also try PYTHON REST API, which is officially made by Microsoft. (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/office365/api/mail-rest-operations)

This was one I tried using Win32:

import win32com.client as win32
import psutil
import os
import subprocess
import sys
 
# Drafting and sending email notification to senders. You can add other senders' email in the list
def send_notification():

    
    outlook = win32.Dispatch('outlook.application')
    olFormatHTML = 2
    olFormatPlain = 1
    olFormatRichText = 3
    olFormatUnspecified = 0
    olMailItem = 0x0
        
    newMail = outlook.CreateItem(olMailItem)
    newMail.Subject = sys.argv[1]
    #newMail.Subject = "check"
    newMail.BodyFormat = olFormatHTML    #or olFormatRichText or olFormatPlain
    #newMail.HTMLBody = "test"
    newMail.HTMLBody = sys.argv[2]
    newMail.To = "[email protected]"
    attachment1 = sys.argv[3]
    attachment2 = sys.argv[4]
    newMail.Attachments.Add(attachment1)
    newMail.Attachments.Add(attachment2)
    
    newMail.display()
    # or just use this instead of .display() if you want to send immediately
    newMail.Send()


    
    
     
# Open Outlook.exe. Path may vary according to system config
# Please check the path to .exe file and update below
def open_outlook():
    try:
        subprocess.call(['C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\Outlook.exe'])
        os.system("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\Outlook.exe");
    except:
        print("Outlook didn't open successfully")     
#
 
# Checking if outlook is already opened. If not, open Outlook.exe and send email
for item in psutil.pids():
    p = psutil.Process(item)
    if p.name() == "OUTLOOK.EXE":
        flag = 1
        break
    else:
        flag = 0
 
if (flag == 1):
    send_notification()
else:
    open_outlook()
    send_notification()

This is a pretty old question but there is one more solution. The current Outlook SMTP server is (as of 2022):

• Host: smtp.office365.com
• Port: 587 (for TLS)

Probably the easiest and cleanest solution is to use Red Mail that has these already set:

pip install redmail

Then:

from redmail import outlook

outlook.user_name = "[email protected]"
outlook.password = "<MY PASSWORD>"

outlook.send(
    receivers=["[email protected]"],
    subject="An example",
    text="Hi, this is an example."
)

Red Mail supports all sorts of advanced features:

• HTML and text bodies
• Attachments from various types
• Embedded images
• It also has Jinja support

Links:

• Documentation: https://red-mail.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
• Source code: https://github.com/Miksus/red-mail

Disclaimer: I'm the author