Email Templates with Jinja in Python

Last Updated : 08 Dec, 2023

HTML emails play a crucial role in modern communication, whether for newsletters, notifications, or transactional emails. Jinja, a powerful templating engine for Python, offers flexibility for creating dynamic and visually appealing HTML email templates. In this article, we will see how we can use Jinja for HTML Email Templates in Python.

Jinja for HTML Email Templates in Python

Below are the steps by which we can use Jinja for HTML Email Templates in Python:

Step 1: Setting Up Jinja2

Before we start doing anything with Jinja we’ll need to have it on our system. Use the command below to install it. Ignore if you already have Jinja2 installed.

 pip install Jinja2

This command will install the Jinja2 templating engine on your system and now we are ready to proceed further.

Step 2: Creating a Basic Email Template (template.html)

Let’s start with a simple email template named template.html. This is an HTML template that we will use with our Jinja2 templating engine, the placeholders in double curly braces {{ }} will be filled in by Jinja. This template also has some styling to show that we can use CSS and remote images.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 
<head>
    <style>
        body {
            background: url("https://unsplash.com/photos/\
              7dlm5aRa4Qw/download?ixid=M3wxMjA3fDB8MXxhbGx8NXx8f\
              Hx8fDJ8fDE2OTk4ODA0Mzd8&force=true&w=1920") 
              no-repeat center center fixed;
        }
 
        .container {
            text-shadow: 10px 10px 10px #000000;
            background: linear-gradient(to right, #00000088, #ffffff1d);
            color: rgb(198, 198, 198);
            padding-bottom: 10px;
            padding-left: 5px;
        }
    </style>
</head>
 
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <header>
            <h1>{{ subject }}</h1>
        </header>
 
        <main>
            <p>{{ greeting }}</p>
            <p>{{ message }}</p>
            <p>Best regards, <br>{{ sender_name }}</p>
        </main>
 
        <footer>
            This email was sent from <i>GFG</i>.
        </footer>
    </div>
</body>
 
</html>

Step 3: Jinja2 in Python (render.py)

Now, let’s create a Python script to render this template using Jinja2 and send it to the respective recipients. This Python script utilizes Jinja2 to create personalized emails by merging data from a template with recipient details. It establishes a connection to an SMTP server, iterates over a list of recipients, generates customized emails using Jinja2, and sends them using the SMTP server. The email content includes a greeting, a predefined message, and the sender’s name.

Python3

# First let's get jinja2
from jinja2 import Template
 
# We will need smtplib to connect to our smtp email server
import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
 
# Read the Jinja2 email template
with open("template.html", "r") as file:
    template_str = file.read()
 
jinja_template = Template(template_str)
 
# Define email server and credentials
smtp_server = "smtp.server.com"
smtp_port = 587
sender_email = "sender@email.com"
sender_password = "password"
 
# Set up email server
server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_server, smtp_port)
server.starttls()
server.login(sender_email, sender_password)
 
# Define recipients and their details
# This can be read from some CSV file or passed from some other program or API
people_data = [
    {"name": "John Doe", "email": "john@example.com"},
    {"name": "Jane Smith", "email": "jane@example.com"},
    {"name": "Bob Johnson", "email": "bob@example.com"},
]
 
# Now we iterate over our data to generate and send custom emails to each
for person in people_data:
    # Create email content using Jinja2 template
    email_data = {
        "subject": "Greetings from Jinja Email",
        "greeting": f"Hello {person['name']}!",
        "message": "This is a sample email generated using Jinja2.",
        "sender_name": "GFG",
    }
    email_content = jinja_template.render(email_data)
 
    # Create the email message
    msg = MIMEMultipart()
    msg["From"] = sender_email
    msg["To"] = person["email"]
    msg["Subject"] = email_data["subject"]
 
    # Attach the HTML content to the email
    msg.attach(MIMEText(email_content, "html"))
 
    # Print and send the email
    print(f"Sending email to {person['email']}:\n{email_content}\n\n")
     
    server.sendmail(sender_email, person["email"], msg.as_string())
 
# Close the server connection
server.quit()

Add your own SMTP server, and account details and fill in your recipient details. You will get this as an email in your recipient account if you used the template in this article

Output

Jinja for HTML Email Templates in Python