mail_debug

synopsis:

Starts a mail server which echos out the contents of the email instead of sending it.

Installation

This command requires installation of aiosmtpd. You can get it from PyPI with:

pip install aiosmtpd

Usage

You can start the mail server with the command:

$ python manage.py mail_debug
Now accepting mail at 127.0.0.1:1025 -- use CONTROL-C to quit

By default, it will start a process listening on port 1025 on local host. Assuming your Django settings EMAIL_HOST and EMAIL_PORT are configured to point to the same IP and port, in another terminal, open the Django shell and run

from django.core.mail import send_mail

send_mail(
    "Subject here",
    "Here is the message.",
    "from@example.com",
    ["to@example.com"],
    fail_silently=False,
)

If you go back to the terminal with the mail_debug command is running, you should see the email coming through:

---------- MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----------
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Subject here
From: from@example.com
To: to@example.com
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2025 12:21:47 -0000
Message-ID:
 <173728930732.90349.12519699486821706188@1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa>
X-Peer: 127.0.0.1

Here is the message.
------------ END MESSAGE ------------

Arguments

You can specify a different port by passing it as argument to the command:

$ python manage.py mail_debug 1026
Now accepting mail at 127.0.0.1:1026 -- use CONTROL-C to quit

You can also pass the host + port separated by a colon, e.g.:

$ python manage.py mail_debug 192.168.1.1:1234
Now accepting mail at 192.168.1.1:1234 -- use CONTROL-C to quit

Options

The command also accepts the following options:

• --output: Specifies an output file to send a copy of all messages (not flushed immediately).

• --use-settings: Uses EMAIL_HOST and HOST_PORT from Django settings. This option is ignored if the address or port is passed as an argument