dj-email-url

This utility is based on dj-database-url by Kenneth Reitz.

It allows to utilize the 12factor inspired environments variable to configure the email backend in a Django application.

Usage

Import the package in settings.py:

import dj_email_url

Fetch your email configuration values. The default option is fetch them from EMAIL_URL environment variable:

email_config = dj_email_url.config()

Other option is parse an arbitrary email URL:

email_config = dj_email_url.parse('smtp://...')

Finally, it is necessary to assign values to settings:

EMAIL_FILE_PATH = email_config['EMAIL_FILE_PATH']
EMAIL_HOST_USER = email_config['EMAIL_HOST_USER']
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = email_config['EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD']
EMAIL_HOST = email_config['EMAIL_HOST']
EMAIL_PORT = email_config['EMAIL_PORT']
EMAIL_BACKEND = email_config['EMAIL_BACKEND']
EMAIL_USE_TLS = email_config['EMAIL_USE_TLS']
EMAIL_USE_SSL = email_config['EMAIL_USE_SSL']
EMAIL_TIMEOUT = email_config['EMAIL_TIMEOUT']

Alternatively, it is possible to use this less explicit shortcut:

vars().update(email_config)

Supported backends

Currently, dj-email-url supports:

Backend	EMAIL_URL	Description
Console	console:	Writes to stdout (development)
SMTP	smtp:	Sends using a mail transfer agent at localhost on port 25
SMTP	submission://USER:PASSWORD@smtp.sendgrid.com	Sends using SendGrid SMTP on port 587 (STARTTLS)
File	file:	Writes to a file
In-memory	memory:
Dummy	dummy:

Warning

Using special characters on passwords

To use characters that have a special meaning in an URL (think of &) you should use percent encoding. For example, m&m would become m%26m.

Because the percent character itself (%) serves as the indicator for percent-encoded octets, it must be percent-encoded as %25.

>>> from urllib.parse import quote_plus
>>> import dj_email_url
>>> quote_plus("!@#$%^&*")
'%21%40%23%24%25%5E%26%2A'
>>> dj_email_url.parse("smtp://user:%21%40%23%24%25%5E%26%2A@localhost")["EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD"]
'!@#$%^&*'

Set from email addresses

dj-email-url also supports to optionally specify origin email addresses.

Setting	Query parameter
SERVER_EMAIL	_server_email
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL	_default_from_email

For example: smtp://USER:PASSWORD@smtp.example.com/?_server_email=error@example.com

Do not forget to assign values to settings:

SERVER_EMAIL = email_config.get('SERVER_EMAIL', 'root@localhost')
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = email_config.get('DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL', 'webmaster@localhost')

Other settings

There are other settings available to set from query param.

Setting	Query parameter	Comments
EMAIL_TIMEOUT	timeout	New in v1.0.5.

More info

SMTP backend

The SMTP backend is selected when the scheme in the URL if one these:

Value	Default port	Comment
smtp	25	Local mail transfer agent
submission or submit	587	SMTP with STARTTLS

Changed in version 0.1: The use of smtps is now discouraged The value smtps was used to indicate to use TLS connections, that is to set EMAIL_USE_TLS to True. Now is recommended to use submission or submit (see service name for port numbers or Uniform Resource Identifier Schemes at IANA).

On the most popular mail configuration option is to use a third party SMTP server to relay emails.

>>> url = 'submission://user@example.com:pass@smtp.example.com'
>>> url = dj_email_url.parse(url)
>>> assert url['EMAIL_PORT'] == 587
>>> assert url['EMAIL_USE_SSL'] is False
>>> assert url['EMAIL_USE_TLS'] is True

Other common option is to use a local mail transfer agent Postfix or Exim. In this case it as easy as:

>>> url = 'smtp://'
>>> url = dj_email_url.parse(url)
>>> assert url['EMAIL_HOST'] == 'localhost'
>>> assert url['EMAIL_PORT'] == 25
>>> assert url['EMAIL_USE_SSL'] is False
>>> assert url['EMAIL_USE_TLS'] is False

It is also possible to configure SMTP-over-SSL (usually on 465). This configuration is not generally recommended but might be needed for legacy systems. To apply use this configuration specify SSL using a ssl=True as a query parameter and indicate the port explicitly:

>>> url = 'smtp://user@domain.com:pass@smtp.example.com:465/?ssl=True'
>>> url = dj_email_url.parse(url)
>>> assert url['EMAIL_PORT'] == 465
>>> assert url['EMAIL_USE_SSL'] is True
>>> assert url['EMAIL_USE_TLS'] is False

File backend

The file backend is the only one which needs a path. The url path is store in EMAIL_FILE_PATH key.

License

This work is licensed under several licences.

• All original source code is licensed under BSD-2-Clause.
• All documentation is licensed under CC-BY-4.0.
• Some configuration and data files are licensed under CC0-1.0.

For more accurate information, check the individual files.

You can check the compliance with REUSE helper tool.