Mailgun Email Sender

A proof of concept CLI emailer using the Mailgun API. This script will automate the process of sending emails with attachments to various recipients.

Getting Setup

This script relies on the python requests package. To install it, run:

$ pip install requests

1. Download the grade-sender.py and add the script to your PATH.

2. Create a directory for the script to work in.

3. Make a csv file for recipients named students.csv in the working directory.

   It should look something like this:

   USER,EMAIL
   aUser,example@example.com
   bUser,example2@example.com
   

   where the entries in the USER column should match the name of the directory that persons files will be in, and the EMAIL column is their email address.

4. Add a config.json file to the working directory. (See a template here.)

   You will need a free Mailgun account for the API credentials.

   Tip: In the config.json file for the "SENDER" field, provide it in the following format: Your Name <example@example.com> (including the pointy brackets).

5. Add a message.txt whose contents will be copied into the body of each' sent email.

6. Add a folder for each student with a standard naming convention. Here is where you will put all of that student's assignments. (See below.)

7. Run the script.

Usage

usage: grade-sender.py [-h] [--config CONFIG] [--roster ROSTER]
                       [--message MESSAGE]
                       subject file

positional arguments:
  subject            subject of email to be sent to all students
  file               name of file to be sent to all students with ext.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  --config CONFIG    path to config file
  --roster ROSTER    path to csv file with roser
  --message MESSAGE  path to .txt file with message for everyone

1. cd into the directory that contains one folder per person.

2. Run

   $ grade-sender <email subject> <desired filename>

   By default the script expects config.json, message.txt, and students.csv file in the working directory. If any of these files are located in a different place, use the optional parameters to specify their location.

Sample Directory Layout

working_directory
├── config.json
├── message.txt
├── students.csv
│
├── aUser
│   ├── assignment01.pdf
│   ├── assignment02.pdf
│   ├── assignment03.pdf
│   └── assignment04.pdf
│
├── bUser
│   ├── assignment01.pdf
│   ├── assignment02.pdf
│   ├── assignment03.pdf
│   └── assignment04.pdf
.
/
.
└── zUser
    ├── assignment01.pdf
    ├── assignment02.pdf
    ├── assignment03.pdf
    └── assignment04.pdf