GUIDE ON HOW TO SEND EMAIL REPORTS IN PYTHON & HOW TO SET IT UP !!

                                                                  

. We'll use the smtplib library in Python to send emails and the email library to construct the email content. Additionally, we will use a scheduler to run the script daily. Here's a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Set Up Your Email Credentials

First, you need to have an email account that will send the reports. It's generally a good idea to use a separate email account for automation purposes.

Step 2: Install Required Libraries

If you don't already have the smtplib, email, and schedule libraries, you can install the necessary libraries. However, smtplib and email come pre-installed with Python, so you'll only need to install schedule.

bash
pip install schedule

Step 3: Write the Script

Here's a Python script to automate sending daily email reports:

python
import smtplib
import schedule
import time
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

# Email configuration
smtp_server = 'smtp.gmail.com'
smtp_port = 587
email_address = 'your_email@gmail.com'
email_password = 'your_password'

def send_email(subject, body, to_emails):
    msg = MIMEMultipart()
    msg['From'] = email_address
    msg['To'] = ', '.join(to_emails)
    msg['Subject'] = subject

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

    try:
        server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_server, smtp_port)
        server.starttls()
        server.login(email_address, email_password)
        server.send_message(msg)
        server.quit()
        print("Email sent successfully!")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Failed to send email: {e}")

def generate_daily_report():
    # Your logic to generate the report
    report = "This is the daily report."
    return report

def job():
    report = generate_daily_report()
    send_email(subject="Daily Report", body=report, to_emails=["recipient@example.com"])

# Schedule the job every day at a specific time
schedule.every().day.at("09:00").do(job)

# Keep the script running
while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(1)

Step 4: Secure Your Credentials

Instead of hardcoding your email password in the script, it's a good practice to use environment variables.

Modify your script to read credentials from environment variables:

python
import os

email_address = os.getenv('EMAIL_ADDRESS')
email_password = os.getenv('EMAIL_PASSWORD')

Set the environment variables in your operating system:

On Windows:

cmd
set EMAIL_ADDRESS=your_email@gmail.com
set EMAIL_PASSWORD=your_password

On macOS/Linux:

bash
export EMAIL_ADDRESS=your_email@gmail.com
export EMAIL_PASSWORD=your_password

Step 5: Run Your Script

Save the script to a file, for example, daily_email_report.py, and run it:

bash
python daily_email_report.py

Step 6: Automate Script Execution

To ensure the script runs automatically, you can set it up as a cron job (on Unix-like systems) or use Task Scheduler (on Windows).

Using Cron (Linux/macOS):

1. Open the crontab editor:

   bash
   crontab -e
   

2. Add a new cron job:

   bash
   @reboot /usr/bin/python3 /path/to/your/script/daily_email_report.py
   

   This ensures that the script runs on system startup.

Using Task Scheduler (Windows):

1. Open Task Scheduler and create a new task.
2. Set the trigger to "At startup".
3. Set the action to "Start a program" and point it to your Python script.

Conclusion

You now have a script that generates and sends daily email reports and runs automatically. Adjust the generate_daily_report function to include your specific report generation logic. 

   courtesy;the internet