django-simple-email 0.1.1

Manage transactional email templates from the Django admin — editable layouts, preview, and test send without deploys.

django-simple-email

Edit your transactional email templates from the Django admin. No redeploy. No template files. Just open the admin, change the copy, and send a test to see it live.

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The problem it solves

Normally, changing the text in a transactional email means editing a file, committing, pushing, and waiting for a deploy. With django-simple-email, templates live in the database. Anyone with admin access can edit them, and a Preview + Send test button lets you confirm the result before it ever reaches a real user.

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Install

pip install django-simple-email

Add to INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "django_simple_email",
]

Run migrations:

python manage.py migrate

That's it.

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Core concepts

EmailLayout

A layout is a reusable envelope: a header and a footer that wrap the content of multiple templates. Define your brand header once — logo, colors, top bar — and reuse it across every email.

Layouts are optional. A template without a layout renders its body directly.

EmailTemplate

A template is the email itself: subject, HTML body, and an optional plain-text fallback. Both subject and html_body support Django template syntax, so you can use {{ variable }}, {% if %}, {% for %}, and everything else Django templates offer.

Each template stores a sample_context — a JSON object with example values. This is what Preview and Send test use, so you always have realistic data to work with.

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Sending email from code

from django_simple_email.sending import send_email

send_email(
    template_name="welcome",
    to=["[e-mail]"],
    context={"name": "Ana", "cta_url": "https://example.com/dashboard"},
)

The context you pass is merged on top of the template's sample_context. Both subject and html_body are rendered as Django templates with the merged context before sending.

send_email uses whatever EMAIL_BACKEND you have configured — no lock-in.

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Admin features

Templates list

The templates list shows a Preview HTML link and a Send test button per row, so you can check any template without opening it.

Change page

When editing a template, the Metadata section at the bottom has:

• Preview HTML — opens the fully rendered email (layout + body) in a new tab
• Send test — renders and sends the email to DJANGO_SIMPLE_EMAIL_TEST_RECIPIENT immediately, showing a success or error message inline

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Settings

Setting	Default	Description
DJANGO_SIMPLE_EMAIL_TEST_RECIPIENT	"[e-mail]"	Address used by the admin test-send button

# settings.py
DJANGO_SIMPLE_EMAIL_TEST_RECIPIENT = "[e-mail]"

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Local development

Requirements

• Poetry
• Docker — for Mailpit (local email catcher)

First-time setup

git clone https://github.com/GustavoRizzo/django-simple-email.git
cd django-simple-email
poetry install
poetry run task setup          # migrate + create superuser
poetry run task load-fixtures  # load sample layouts and templates

Running

poetry run task mailpit    # Mailpit SMTP on :1025, web UI on :8025
poetry run task run-demo   # Django on localhost:8000

Go to localhost:8000/admin and log in with the superuser you created.

The fixtures include a default layout and three templates (welcome, password-reset, notification), plus seasonal layout variants (Halloween, Christmas, New Year) with matching template variations — enough to explore the preview and test-send features right away.

Tests and linting

poetry run task test
poetry run task lint
poetry run task lint-fix

Releasing

poetry version patch   # 0.1.0 → 0.1.1
poetry build
poetry publish