[FIXED] Send emails through gmail using flask-mail

Issue

I have a simple CRUD webapp set up in Python/Flask, when one particular function is activated (approving a request) I'd like to send an email notification to the user, but for all I've tried I can't get the email to send through my code.

Here is my config file with all the relevant environment variables set (inside of a Config object):

MAIL_SERVER = 'smtp.gmail.com'
MAIL_PORT=465
MAIL_USE_SSL=True
MAIL_USERNAME = '**@gmail.com'
MAIL_PASSWORD = '**'

I have also tried calling app.config.update(those values) in my app/init.py file. Here is the current code to do so

mail = Mail()

def create_app(config_name):
    app = Flask(__name__, instance_relative_config=True)
    app.config.from_object(app_config[config_name])
    app.config.from_pyfile('./config.py')
    app.config.update(
    MAIL_SERVER='smtp.gmail.com',
    MAIL_PORT=465,
    MAIL_USE_SSL=True,
    MAIL_USE_TLS=False,
    MAIL_USERNAME = '**@gmail.com',
    MAIL_PASSWORD = '**')

    mail.init_app(app)

And finally here is the code where I actually attempt to send the email:

msg = Message(html=html, sender='**@gmail.com', subject='Your Reservation for %s' % reservation.item.name, recipients=['**'])
mail.send(msg)

Additionally, it currently fails silently and I don't know how to even view what error is happening. Any help is much appreciated!

Solution

My suggestion in the comments was indeed the answer to the question.

Enabling "Less Secure Apps" in the Google Account settings was the necessary step to fix the hangup the OP was experiencing. This link from Google's support page walks you through how to enable this option.

Answered By - BrettJ