Why not automate 'Emails'?

Automated Emails through R

Imagine you can send hundreds of emails in a click. Make a basic template, customize and send it to several in a click!

Either you use an office email or Gmail, does not matter.

Are you a professor at work, send similar emails to all your students in a click. Wait for the next post in which you will see an example case in the same page.

Library is Blastula. Install it NOW!!

library(blastula)
library(dplyr)

Function add_readable_time() lets add current date and time in the email. Let’s save that in a variable.

date_time <- add_readable_time()

We also intend to have inline image in the email. We will create html fragment that needs to be put into email text.

#img_file_path <- "automate.jpg"

img_string <- add_image(file = img_file_path)

Function compose_email() lets us formulate a full html email to be sent. There are three parts of the entire email.

1. Header: For the top portion of email
2. Body: Main message to communicate in the email
3. Footer: Foot notes for the email

email <-
  
  compose_email(
    
    body = md(glue::glue(
      "Hello,

Do you want to learn how to send several emails **AUTOMATED** and **FREE**!!! 

Let's **GO THEN**

{img_string}
")),
    
    footer = md(glue::glue("Email sent on {date_time} \n\n Blastula is fantastic"))
  )

Preview the email

# email

Shows up in the viewer pane.

Insert email password here:

Create SMTP credentials through the function create_smtp_creds_file() for Rstudio to connect with your email. Replace your email in the user field and email service in the provider.

create_smtp_creds_file( file = "gmail_creds",
   user = "daniyalarifsaeed2@gmail.com",
   provider = "gmail",
   use_ssl = TRUE  )

## Please enter password in TK window (Alt+Tab)

## The SMTP credentials file (`gmail_creds`) has been generated

Finally, sending the email. Pipe the email into smtp_send()

creds_file is the same as created above.

email %>%
  smtp_send(
    to = "daniyalarifsaeed@gmail.com",
    from = "daniyalarifsaeed2@gmail.com",
    subject = "Automate sending `Emails`",
    credentials = creds_file("gmail_creds")
  )

## The email message was sent successfully.