Amazon SES SMTP with Django

Aug, 2022 Update with Django-3.2.4:

No libraries needed such as django-ses or django-amazon-ses !!

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'
EMAIL_HOST = 'email-smtp.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com'
EMAIL_PORT = 587
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'my_smtp_username'      # Must create SMTP Credentials
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'my_smtp_password'  # Must create SMTP Credentials
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]' # If don't need, comment out!!

I added DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL.

DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]'

If you don't need it, comment it out!!

# DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]'

Moreover, for DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL, put one verified domain or email address whether or not your account is in the sandbox.

So for the verified domain sender.com below,

enter image description here


Three of them below are valid: (Use only one of three)

DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]' # OR
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]' # OR
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]'

But these two below are not valid: (These give you error)

*The format must be [email protected] !!

DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = 'sender.com' 
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '@sender.com'

Then, for the verified 2 email addresses below,

enter image description here


Just use only one of two below:

DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]' # OR
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]'

Finally, for EMAIL_HOST_USER and EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD, you must create SMTP Credentials.

Choose SMTP Settings:

enter image description here


Press Create My SMTP Credentials Button:

enter image description here


Given SMTP Credentials:

enter image description here

Then, put the SMTP Credentials as below:

EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'AKIAWP3TMGZN4OZH5H37'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'BB6dufiw96jJHUTrowXI8R4gcyOI+t1+Skbi51cdHYhV'

*(I've already deleted these SMTP Credentials)



Since Django 1.7, you can send email with SSL natively without third party library.

EMAIL_USE_SSL = True

Docs


I found a much simpler solution that would allow me to use Django's built-in mail classes so I can still get my admin error email reports etc.

Thanks to this little beauty I was able to use SES SMTP without any problems:

https://github.com/bancek/django-smtp-ssl

Download and install (python setup.py install)

Then just change your settings to use this new email backend:

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django_smtp_ssl.SSLEmailBackend'

The rest of the settings are as per normal:

EMAIL_HOST = 'email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com'
EMAIL_PORT = 465
EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'my_smtp_username'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'my_smtp_password'
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True

2019 Update: Django 2.2.1

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'

EMAIL_HOST = 'email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com'
EMAIL_PORT = 587
EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'my_smtp_username'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'my_smtp_password'
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True

No library needed.

Credits : https://stackoverflow.com/a/32476190/5647272

Reference : https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/topics/email/