Django-Mailgun

A Django email backend for use with Mailgun

Overview

Django-Mailgun is a drop-in mail backend for Django.

Getting going

Install django-mailgun:

pip install django-mailgun

Add the following to your settings.py:

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django_mailgun.MailgunBackend'
MAILGUN_ACCESS_KEY = 'ACCESS-KEY'
MAILGUN_SERVER_NAME = 'SERVER-NAME'

Replace ACCESS-KEY with the "API-KEY" value from your Mailgun account details and SERVER-NAME with the last part of your "API Base URL" (eg. https://api.mailgun.net/v3/<your_server_name>), also found in your Mailgun account details.

Now, when you use django.core.mail.send_mail, Mailgun will send the messages.

Extra features

Passing user-specific data

Mailgun also includes the ability to send emails to a group of recipients via a single API call (https://documentation.mailgun.com/user_manual.html#batch-sending). To make use of this, you need to pass Recipient Variables along with your API call. To do so with Django-Mailgun, add a valid JSON string to the extra_headers attribute of EmailMessage and Django-Mailgun will remove the string from the headers and send it appropriately. For example:

email = EmailMessage('Hi!', 'Cool message for %recipient.first_name%', '[email protected]', [[email protected], [email protected]])
email.extra_headers['recipient_variables'] = '{"[email protected]":{"first_name":"Joe"}, "[email protected]":{"first_name":"Jane"}}'
email.send()

When Jane receives her email, its body should read 'Cool message for Jane', and Joe will see 'Cool message for Joe'.

Analytics and other tracking features

Mailgun provides the ability to track certain events that concern your emails. The API exposes these options (see https://documentation.mailgun.com/api-sending.html#sending). These options can also be passed to Mailgun's SMTP server (see "Passing Sending Options" under https://documentation.mailgun.com/user_manual.html#sending-via-smtp). If you add any of the SMTP options to the extra_headers attribute of EmailMessage, Django-Mailgun will map those values over to the appropriate API parameter. For example:

email = EmailMessage('Hi!', 'Cool message for Joe', '[email protected]', [[email protected]])
email.extra_headers['X-Mailgun-Tag'] = ['Tag 1', 'Tag 2']
email.send()

When the email is sent, it will be tagged with 'Tag 1' and 'Tag 2'. You can provide a string for any value, or a list or tuple that contains strings for options that can take multiple values.

Attaching data to messages

When sending, you can attach data to your messages by passing custom data to X-Mailgun-Variables header (see https://documentation.mailgun.com/user_manual.html#attaching-data-to-messages). Data should be formatted as JSON, and it will be included in any webhook event releated to the email containing the custom data. For example:

email = EmailMessage('Hi!', 'Cool message for Joe', '[email protected]', [[email protected]])
email.extra_headers['X-Mailgun-Variables'] = {'my-id': 'email_id', 'my-variable':'variable'}
email.send()

Later, you can read this data in your Mailgun webhook handler. For example:

def mailgun_webhook(request):
    email_id = request.data.get('my-id')
    my_variable = request.data.get('my-variable')

    # Do something with your variables

    return Response(status=status.HTTP_200_OK)

NOTE: Django-Mailgun does NOT validate your data for compliance with Mailgun's API; it merely maps over whatever values you provide. For example, Mailgun's API states that no more than 3 tags are allowed per email, and each tag must be no greater than 128 characters (https://documentation.mailgun.com/user_manual.html#tagging). If you provide 4 tags, or a tag longer than 128 characters, Django-Mailgun will attempt to send such (potentially) invalid data. You must ensure what you send is appropriate.

Django Email Backend Reference

• http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#e-mail-backends