Email sending example

  • Posted by nilvec
  • September 8, 2009

As promised, here’s a simple example on how to use the SMTP library. If the username and the password are replaced with actually existing user credentials then this code snippet can send mails via Gmail.

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public void send(String from, String to, String subject, String text)
throws IOException {
        client = new SMTPClient("UTF-8");
        client.setDefaultTimeout(60 * 1000);
 
        client.setRequireStartTLS(true); // requires STARTTLS
        //client.setUseStartTLS(true); // tries STARTTLS, but falls back if not supported
        client.setUseAuth(true); // use SMTP AUTH
        //client.setAuthMechanisms(authMechanisms); // sets AUTH mechanisms e.g. LOGIN
 
       	client.connect("smtp.gmail.com", 587);
       	checkReply(client);
 
       	client.login("localhost", "user@gmail.com", "passwd");
       	checkReply(client);
 
       	client.setSender(from);
       	checkReply(client);
       	client.addRecipient(to);
       	checkReply(client);
 
       	Writer writer = client.sendMessageData();
 
       	if (writer != null) {
       		SimpleSMTPHeader header = new SimpleSMTPHeader(from, to, subject);
       		writer.write(header.toString());
       		writer.write(text);
       		writer.close();
       		client.completePendingCommand();
       	        checkReply(client);
        }
 
        client.logout();
        client.disconnect();
}
 
private void checkReply(SMTPClient sc) throws IOException {
	if (SMTPReply.isNegativeTransient(sc.getReplyCode())) {
		sc.disconnect();
		throw new IOException("Transient SMTP error " + sc.getReplyCode());
	} else if (SMTPReply.isNegativePermanent(sc.getReplyCode())) {
		sc.disconnect();
		throw new IOException("Permanent SMTP error " + sc.getReplyCode());
	}
}

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Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Ostaski
Posted on:
September 18, 2009 at 11:02 PM

Hi,

Found your sample code here and tried it on sdk 1.5.

I don’t have any errors, but am getting: “Conversion to Dalvik format failed with error 1″ despite trying Project > Clean and deleting R.java in eclipse, so no apk is generated.

Any clues why?

Thanks!

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Ostaski
Posted on:
September 19, 2009 at 10:30 PM

Hi,

My bad; the problem was with the manifest.

Works great now!

I see you are using SMTPClient and SimpleSMTPHeader to send a simple message. Looking at the source, I do not see any support for attachments and that is something I need.

It is possible all I need to do is add the EmailAttachment and MultiPartEmail classes from the org.apache.commons.mail package.

Have you tried this?

Thanks!

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
bdgr
Posted on:
September 24, 2009 at 9:58 AM

Hi there,

you’re right, MIME and thus attachments/multipart messages are not supported (yet). The problem with org.apache.commons.mail is that it is built on top of Java Mail, so you need again the activation framework and AWT for it — making it basically a no-go for Android.

Nevertheless, I see a few possible solutions. One of them is to take and use the com.android.email.mail.internet package from the Android built-in Email application (you can get via git from git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/packages/apps/Email.git).

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Email directly from Note To Me | mgmblog.com
Posted on:
October 2, 2009 at 7:35 AM

[...] Email Sending Example [...]

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Richard
Posted on:
November 14, 2009 at 12:55 PM

Hi, i’ve a little problem.
The SMTPClient class is in Apache SDK?

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
bdgr
Posted on:
November 21, 2009 at 8:04 PM

Richard, yep, but it is also available in the patched version of the library (see previous articles). Use the latter if you would like to send mails on Android.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Steven
Posted on:
November 26, 2009 at 8:00 AM

Hi,Nilvec,
The SMTPClient class and SMTPReply class is in jdk ?

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Steven
Posted on:
November 26, 2009 at 8:29 AM

Thanks!
SMTPClient,SimpleSMTPHeader,SMTPReply belong to
org.apache.commons.net.smtp

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
Hesham
Posted on:
January 22, 2010 at 12:48 AM

Thanks a lot for example.

I have tried to run it and it runs fine without displaying any errors. Buy it never actually sends an email! Do I have to add anything to the project or this code should run without any modifications (other than the username and password of course).

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
neodem
Posted on:
March 6, 2010 at 10:45 PM

Nice work thanks! Oh and for the last commenter, don’t forget to set the Andriod permission to use the internet in your manifest ()

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
bdgr
Posted on:
March 14, 2010 at 12:55 AM

Do you see anything in the log? It should emit quite a few debug messages.

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
Sasi
Posted on:
April 13, 2010 at 5:00 AM

Hello Every One .. i have tried to instantiate the SMTPClient by
SMTPClient client= new SMTPClient(“UTF-8″);
But its giving an error saying that application has stopped unexpectedly

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
bdgr
Posted on:
April 24, 2010 at 11:34 AM

Hi Sasi,

can you check the log on your android device and paste the relevant parts here? That should shed some more light on what is wrong.

Comment Number:
14
Written by:
John
Posted on:
May 26, 2010 at 6:24 PM

Hi,

Great snippet! I’ve been able to send an email without all the JavaMail junk thanks to this.

But one question though, can this send an email to multiple receivers? e.g. (cc: user1@try.com,user2@try.com,user3@try.com) ? If it’s possible, how would you implement it?

Comment Number:
15
Written by:
robert
Posted on:
July 28, 2010 at 10:54 AM

I’ve use this snippet fine.except I got the ConnectionException: smtp.gmail.com/72.14.213.109:587 – Connection refused

Anything conf need to be change here?