mitol-django-mail 2026.4.2

MIT Open Learning django app extensions for mail

mitol-django-mail

This is the Open Learning Django Mail app. It provides a few key features around mail:

• Templated multipart html emails
• Automatic generation of plaintext portion of multipart email
• CSS inlining for email html

Getting started

pip install mitol-django-mail

Add the mail app:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "mitol.mail.apps.MailApp",
]

Settings

Common Django settings

• SITE_BASE_URL - the website's host url, including the protocol (e.g. "https://example.com/")
• SITE_NAME - the website's name

Mail app settings

All settings for the mitol-django-mail app are namespaced in django settings with MITOL_MAIL_ prefix.

• MITOL_MAIL_FROM_EMAIL - the default from email for all messages
• MITOL_MAIL_REPLY_TO_ADDRESS - the default reply-to email for all messages
• MITOL_MAIL_MESSAGE_CLASSES - a list of fully qualified message class names that make the message classes available in the debugger
• MITOL_MAIL_ENABLE_EMAIL_DEBUGGER - True if the email debugger should be enabled, you probably want to set this to the same value as DEBUG
• MITOL_MAIL_RECIPIENT_OVERRIDE - only used locally, this overrides the recipient of all outgoing email messages
• MITOL_MAIL_FORMAT_RECIPIENT_FUNC - (optional) set to a custom function to format recipients. You'll typically use this if you're storing the name in a place other that Django's builtin User model. Default: "mitol.mail.defaults.format_recipient".
• MITOL_MAIL_CAN_EMAIL_USER_FUNC - (optional) set to a custom function to determine whether a user can be sent an email. You'll typically use this if you have additional criteria beyond the user having an email. Default: "mitol.mail.defaults.can_email_user".
• MITOL_MAIL_CONNECTION_BACKEND - the connection backend to use for email sending. You'd use this only if you're doing something really custom that anymail doesn't give you. Default: "anymail.backends.mailgun.EmailBackend".

Usage

Create message classes

This involves subclassing mitol.mail.messages.TemplatedMessage. To subclass, do the following:

• template_name attribute - str that denotes the directory within templates/mail that this message's templates reside in (e.g. "password_reset")
• name attribute - a human-friendly name for your message (e.g. "Password Reset")
• get_debug_template_context - static method that returns a context dict for rendering the email in the debugger

Define templates

In your apps's templates directory, create some templates:

templates/
  mail/
    {template_name}/
      subject.txt
      body.html

Configure settings.py

Add your custom message class to MITOL_MAIL_MESSAGE_CLASSES so it is available in the debugger.

Optional customizations

Optionally, you can also override:

• get_base_template_context - extend the default base template context used with all emails of this type. Return type is a dict. As a best practice you should be merging with super().get_base_template_context().
• get_default_headers - extend the default headers included with all emails of this type. Return type is a dict. As a best practice you should be merging with super().get_default_headers().