How to Send Emails in Python with Gmail SMTP and API

Python can send email through Gmail using the built-in `smtplib` module for SMTP connections and the `email` package for creating MIME-formatted messages, supporting plain text, multiple recipients, attachments, HTML content, templates, and individualized bulk messages. Gmail SMTP typically uses an SSL connection on port 465 and now requires an App Password rather than a normal account password, while OAuth 2.0 authentication requires the Gmail API. The Gmail API provides additional capabilities for sending, receiving, organizing, and managing messages, but requires setting up a Google Cloud project, enabling the API, obtaining OAuth credentials, installing Google client libraries, requesting appropriate scopes, and base64-encoding message content before sending. Both Gmail SMTP and API access impose constraints including daily sending, quota, rate, attachment-size, and connection-throttling limits, making Gmail less suitable for high-volume production campaigns. The tutorial also identifies third-party services such as Mailtrap as alternatives that offer SMTP or API-based delivery, configurable transactional and bulk streams, delivery controls, and infrastructure intended for application email sending.

Use this post, company, and trend context to find content marketing opportunities, perform competitive analysis, or address product feature gaps via the Plushcap MCP server or the Plushcap API.