How to make SMTPHandler not block

Here's the implementation I'm using, which I based on this Gmail adapted SMTPHandler.
I took the part that sends to SMTP and placed it in a different thread.

import logging.handlers
import smtplib
from threading import Thread

def smtp_at_your_own_leasure(mailhost, port, username, password, fromaddr, toaddrs, msg):
    smtp = smtplib.SMTP(mailhost, port)
    if username:
        smtp.ehlo() # for tls add this line
        smtp.starttls() # for tls add this line
        smtp.ehlo() # for tls add this line
        smtp.login(username, password)
    smtp.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddrs, msg)
    smtp.quit()

class ThreadedTlsSMTPHandler(logging.handlers.SMTPHandler):
    def emit(self, record):
        try:
            import string # for tls add this line
            try:
                from email.utils import formatdate
            except ImportError:
                formatdate = self.date_time
            port = self.mailport
            if not port:
                port = smtplib.SMTP_PORT
            msg = self.format(record)
            msg = "From: %s\r\nTo: %s\r\nSubject: %s\r\nDate: %s\r\n\r\n%s" % (
                            self.fromaddr,
                            string.join(self.toaddrs, ","),
                            self.getSubject(record),
                            formatdate(), msg)
            thread = Thread(target=smtp_at_your_own_leasure, args=(self.mailhost, port, self.username, self.password, self.fromaddr, self.toaddrs, msg))
            thread.start()
        except (KeyboardInterrupt, SystemExit):
            raise
        except:
            self.handleError(record)

Usage example:

logger = logging.getLogger()

gm = ThreadedTlsSMTPHandler(("smtp.gmail.com", 587), 'bugs@my_company.com', ['admin@my_company.com'], 'Error found!', ('[email protected]', 'top_secret_gmail_password'))
gm.setLevel(logging.ERROR)

logger.addHandler(gm)

try:
    1/0
except:
    logger.exception('FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-')

You could use QueueHandler and QueueListener. Taken from the docs:

Along with the QueueListener class, QueueHandler can be used to let handlers do their work on a separate thread from the one which does the logging. This is important in Web applications and also other service applications where threads servicing clients need to respond as quickly as possible, while any potentially slow operations (such as sending an email via SMTPHandler) are done on a separate thread.

Alas they are only available from Python 3.2 onward.

The simplest form of asynchronous smtp handler for me is just to override emit method and use the original method in a new thread. GIL is not a problem in this case because there is an I/O call to SMTP server which releases GIL. The code is as follows

class ThreadedSMTPHandler(SMTPHandler):
    def emit(self, record):
        thread = Thread(target=SMTPHandler.emit, args=(self, record))
        thread.start()