How to automate sending daily email reports in Python, and walk me through how I would set it up

 

To automate sending daily email reports in Python, you can use libraries like smtplib and email for sending emails, and schedule for scheduling the script to run daily. Here's a step-by-step guide to set it up:

Step 1: Prepare Your Report Data Before you can send daily email reports, you need to generate the report data you want to send. This could be data from a database, CSV files, or any other data source. For this example, let's assume you have a function generate_report() that generates your daily report.

Step 2: Set Up Your Email Configuration You'll need to provide your email credentials (SMTP server, username, and password) and configure the email message. You can use a Gmail account for sending emails. Replace 'youremail@gmail.com' and 'yourpassword' with your actual email credentials.

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import smtplib

from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart

from email.mime.text import MIMEText

 

# Email configuration

smtp_server = 'smtp.gmail.com'

smtp_port = 587

sender_email = 'youremail@gmail.com'

sender_password = 'yourpassword'

recipient_email = 'recipient@example.com'

 

Step 3: Create the Email Message Function Create a function that generates the email message with the report attached as a text file.

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def create_email_message(subject, message, from_email, to_email, attachment_path):

    msg = MIMEMultipart()

    msg['From'] = from_email

    msg['To'] = to_email

    msg['Subject'] = subject

 

    # Attach the message

    msg.attach(MIMEText(message, 'plain'))

 

    # Attach the report file

    with open(attachment_path, 'rb') as file:

        attachment = MIMEText(file.read())

        msg.add_header('Content-Disposition', f'attachment; filename="{attachment_path}"')

        msg.attach(attachment)

 

    return msg

 

Step 4: Create the Send Email Function Create a function that sends the email using the smtplib library.

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def send_email(subject, message, from_email, to_email, attachment_path):

    msg = create_email_message(subject, message, from_email, to_email, attachment_path)

 

    try:

        # Connect to the SMTP server

        server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_server, smtp_port)

        server.starttls()

        server.login(from_email, sender_password)

 

        # Send the email

        server.sendmail(from_email, to_email, msg.as_string())

 

        # Close the SMTP server connection

        server.quit()

        print('Email sent successfully')

    except Exception as e:

        print(f'Email sending failed: {e}')

 

Step 5: Schedule the Email Sending

To send the email report daily, you can use the schedule library to schedule the script to run at a specific time.

Install the schedule library if you haven't already:

pip install schedule

Now, create a script that generates the report, sends the email, and schedules it to run daily:

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import schedule

import time

 

def main():

    report_data = generate_report()  # Generate your report data

    subject = 'Daily Report'

    message = 'Here is your daily report.'

    attachment_path = 'report.txt'

 

    # Save the report data to a file (e.g., report.txt)

    with open(attachment_path, 'w') as file:

        file.write(report_data)

 

    send_email(subject, message, sender_email, recipient_email, attachment_path)

 

if __name__ == '__main__':

    schedule.every().day.at('08:00').do(main)  # Adjust the time as needed

    while True:

        schedule.run_pending()

        time.sleep(1)

This script will run the main function every day at 8:00 AM. Adjust the time according to your preferred schedule.

Step 6: Run the Script Save the script, and run it. It will send your daily report automatically at the scheduled time.

Make sure to enable "Less secure apps" in your Gmail settings or use an App Password if you encounter authentication issues with Gmail.