Android Question [SOLVED] Automatically sending an email from B4A

rleiman

rleiman

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Greetings,

I have been calling the phone's email like this.

B4X: 
Dim msg As Email

msg.Subject = "Song Requests"
msg.Body = EditTextRequestedSongs.Text
msg.To.Add("ultraviproduction@gmail.com")

StartActivity(msg.GetIntent)

Is there a way in B4A to send the email from the app without actually displaying the email client on the screen in code?

Thanks.
 
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JohnC

JohnC

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Using an intent will just open the default email client on the device (or display a list of clients that can handle it) - which the user then needs to manually complete the sending of the email.

Doing a quick search on this forum you will find this tutorial of how to programmically send emails using the user's own gmail account without user intervention (after the user does a one-time authorization to authorize your app):

[B4X] Sending emails with Gmail REST API

This solution is compatible with B4A, B4J and B4i. Up until now there were two ways to send emails: 1. Using the default mobile app which required the user to actually send the message (available in B4A and B4i). 2. Using SMTP from the Net library. This required the user to enter the email...
www.b4x.com www.b4x.com
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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JohnC said:
Using an intent will just open the default email client on the device (or display a list of clients that can handle it) - which the user then needs to manually complete the sending of the email.

Doing a quick search on this forum you will find this tutorial of how to programmically send emails using the user's own gmail account without user intervention (after the user does a one-time authorization to authorize your app):

[B4X] Sending emails with Gmail REST API

This solution is compatible with B4A, B4J and B4i. Up until now there were two ways to send emails: 1. Using the default mobile app which required the user to actually send the message (available in B4A and B4i). 2. Using SMTP from the Net library. This required the user to enter the email...
www.b4x.com www.b4x.com
Click to expand...
Thanks for such a fast reply. I will go through the tutorial tomorrow.
 
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A

Alex_197

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rleiman said:
Greetings,

I have been calling the phone's email like this.

B4X: 
Dim msg As Email

msg.Subject = "Song Requests"
msg.Body = EditTextRequestedSongs.Text
msg.To.Add("ultraviproduction@gmail.com")

StartActivity(msg.GetIntent)

Is there a way in B4A to send the email from the app without actually displaying the email client on the screen in code?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
check this SMTP
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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Thanks everyone for responding.

My hopes went high when I saw John's post, but the tutorial sent me to another tutorial for GoogleOAuth2. That tutorial had too many assumptions that the reader knew how to set up a Google API account and create an account and create a client id and basically navigate Google API which we didn't have time to learn. Anyway I went to Alex's posting and I thought that was the solutions for us but when I downloaded the attached zip file, it only contained the library files and there was no sample project showing how to use the library so I did a search on that library. If I find a solution I will post the results and coding in case someone else needs to do what we are doing.
 
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JohnC

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You misunderstand, YOU do all that those steps to get the Client ID for your app.

To the user, when they first try to send an email, it will ask for authorization, which is a simple prompt, then that's all the user needs to do!
 
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A

Alex_197

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B4X: 
Private Sub SendEmail
    
    Try

Dim mail As SMTP
mail.Initialize(Main.MailServer, 587, Main.MailUserName, Main.MailPassword, "SMTP")


        Dim Body As String
        Dim Subj As String
        Dim EmailTo As String
        
        Subj="Please contact the office to manually enter timesheet."

        Body= "It's been more than 24 hours since your clock in"
        
        EmailTo="someemail.@email.com"                
        
        mail.StartTLSMode = True
        mail.To.Add(EmailTo)
        mail.HtmlBody=True       
        mail.Subject = Subj
        mail.Body = Body
        mail.Sender = "info@email.com"
        mail.Send
        
        
    Catch
        Log("SendEmail " & LastException)
        
    End Try
    
End Sub

Sub SMTP_MessageSent(Success As Boolean)
    
    Try
        Log(Success)
        If Success Then
            
            ToastMessageShow("Message sent successfully", True)
        Else
            ToastMessageShow("Error sending message", True)
            Log(LastException.Message)
        End If
    Catch
        Log("SMTP_MessageSent " & LastException)
        
    End Try
    
    

End Sub
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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JohnC said:
You misunderstand, YOU do all that those steps to get the Client ID for your app.

To the user, when they first try to send an email, it will ask for authorization, which is a simple prompt, then that's all the user needs to do!
Click to expand...
Alex_197 said:
B4X: 
Private Sub SendEmail
   
    Try

Dim mail As SMTP
mail.Initialize(Main.MailServer, 587, Main.MailUserName, Main.MailPassword, "SMTP")


        Dim Body As String
        Dim Subj As String
        Dim EmailTo As String
       
        Subj="Please contact the office to manually enter timesheet."

        Body= "It's been more than 24 hours since your clock in"
       
        EmailTo="someemail.@email.com"               
       
        mail.StartTLSMode = True
        mail.To.Add(EmailTo)
        mail.HtmlBody=True      
        mail.Subject = Subj
        mail.Body = Body
        mail.Sender = "info@email.com"
        mail.Send
       
       
    Catch
        Log("SendEmail " & LastException)
       
    End Try
   
End Sub

Sub SMTP_MessageSent(Success As Boolean)
   
    Try
        Log(Success)
        If Success Then
           
            ToastMessageShow("Message sent successfully", True)
        Else
            ToastMessageShow("Error sending message", True)
            Log(LastException.Message)
        End If
    Catch
        Log("SMTP_MessageSent " & LastException)
       
    End Try
   
   

End Sub
Click to expand...
JohnC said:
You misunderstand, YOU do all that those steps to get the Client ID for your app.

To the user, when they first try to send an email, it will ask for authorization, which is a simple prompt, then that's all the user needs to do!
Click to expand...
Hi John,

We will be going with Alex's code because we don't know how to navigate the Google API website, but thanks for suggesting that as a possible solution.
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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Alex_197 said:
B4X: 
Private Sub SendEmail
 
    Try

Dim mail As SMTP
mail.Initialize(Main.MailServer, 587, Main.MailUserName, Main.MailPassword, "SMTP")


        Dim Body As String
        Dim Subj As String
        Dim EmailTo As String
     
        Subj="Please contact the office to manually enter timesheet."

        Body= "It's been more than 24 hours since your clock in"
     
        EmailTo="someemail.@email.com"             
     
        mail.StartTLSMode = True
        mail.To.Add(EmailTo)
        mail.HtmlBody=True    
        mail.Subject = Subj
        mail.Body = Body
        mail.Sender = "info@email.com"
        mail.Send
     
     
    Catch
        Log("SendEmail " & LastException)
     
    End Try
 
End Sub

Sub SMTP_MessageSent(Success As Boolean)
 
    Try
        Log(Success)
        If Success Then
         
            ToastMessageShow("Message sent successfully", True)
        Else
            ToastMessageShow("Error sending message", True)
            Log(LastException.Message)
        End If
    Catch
        Log("SMTP_MessageSent " & LastException)
     
    End Try
End Sub
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for the code sample. Looks like we need another library along with the Network library.
 
Last edited:
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JohnC

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rleiman said:
Hi John,

We will be going with Alex's code because we don't know how to navigate the Google API website, but thanks for suggesting that as a possible solution.
Click to expand...
That's ok, but keep in mind if you use the SMTP method, then you will still need the user to figure out some rather technical info like what their smtp server address is, the port number, the username, the password and SSL/TSL setting in order to send an email using the SMTP method.

However, if your plan is to instead use YOUR smtp server (and you would embed your smtp account username, password, port, etc within your app, so you wouldn't have to ask the user for their server's details), then please keep in mind that it wouldn't be too difficult for a hacker to uncover that info from within your APK and then use your smtp account for bad purposes. It is not likely this will happen, but I just wanted you to know about this possibility.
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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JohnC said:
That's ok, but keep in mind if you use the SMTP method, then you will still need the user to figure out some rather technical info like what their smtp server address is, the port number, the username, the password and SSL/TSL setting in order to send an email using the SMTP method.

However, if your plan is to instead use YOUR smtp server (and you would embed your smtp account username, password, port, etc within your app, so you wouldn't have to ask the user for their server's details), then please keep in mind that it wouldn't be too difficult for a hacker to uncover that info from within your APK and then use your smtp account for bad purposes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.
We were planning on having the user enter their credentials like they would do when they set up their email client on their computer.
 
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JohnC

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You really should try the GMAIL API, it's not very difficult to figure out, and it will offer a much better UX for your app.
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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Using Alex's code I was able to get the app to compile and recognise the library after exit and load the project back up. The message though would not be send so I'm going to start a new thread for that issue and mark this one as solved.
 
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A

Alex_197

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rleiman said:
Thanks.

Could you look at my new thread and let me know why the message is not being sent? Thanks so much.

https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/net-library-using-smtp-to-send-an-email-message.123969/
Click to expand...

Check This first https://support.google.com/accounts...en&visit_id=637395031216316543-150071489&rd=1

Step 1 - Solution https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps Enable the check
Step 2 -
B4X: 
Private Sub SendEmail
    
    Try
        
  
        email.Initialize("smtp.gmail.com", 587, "yourmailbox@gmail.com", "gmailpassword", "EmailClient")
        
  
        Dim Body As String
        Dim Subj As String
        Dim EmailTo As String
        Dim SenderEmail As String
      
        Subj="Test Email."
        Body= "Testing 123."
        EmailTo="info@email.com"
        SenderEmail="yourmailbox@gmail.com" ' MUST be the same as "yourmailbox@gmail.com"
                
        email.AuthMethod=email.AUTH_LOGIN
        email.UseSSL = True
        email.StartTLSMode = True
        email.To.Add(EmailTo)
        email.HtmlBody=True
        email.Subject = Subj
        email.Body =  Body
        email.Sender = SenderEmail
        email.HtmlBody=True
        email.Send
        Log("Tried to send")
        
    Catch
        Log("SendEmail " & LastException)
    End Try
End Sub

Sub EmailClient_MessageSent(Success As Boolean)
    
    Try
    
        Log(Success)
        
        
    Catch
        Log(LastException)
    End Try
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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Alex_197 said:
Check This first https://support.google.com/accounts...en&visit_id=637395031216316543-150071489&rd=1

Step 1 - Solution https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps Enable the check
Step 2 -
B4X: 
Private Sub SendEmail
   
    Try
       
 
        email.Initialize("smtp.gmail.com", 587, "yourmailbox@gmail.com", "gmailpassword", "EmailClient")
       
 
        Dim Body As String
        Dim Subj As String
        Dim EmailTo As String
        Dim SenderEmail As String
     
        Subj="Test Email."
        Body= "Testing 123."
        EmailTo="info@email.com"
        SenderEmail="yourmailbox@gmail.com" ' MUST be the same as "yourmailbox@gmail.com"
               
        email.AuthMethod=email.AUTH_LOGIN
        email.UseSSL = True
        email.StartTLSMode = True
        email.To.Add(EmailTo)
        email.HtmlBody=True
        email.Subject = Subj
        email.Body =  Body
        email.Sender = SenderEmail
        email.HtmlBody=True
        email.Send
        Log("Tried to send")
       
    Catch
        Log("SendEmail " & LastException)
    End Try
End Sub

Sub EmailClient_MessageSent(Success As Boolean)
   
    Try
   
        Log(Success)
       
       
    Catch
        Log(LastException)
    End Try
Click to expand...
Thanks for the coding changes but it still won't get sent as reported in the logs. The "Tried to send" message and the "False" was in the logs. I also tried the "Step 1" link but Safari reports it as not a valid address.
 
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A

Alex_197

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Step 1 - open this URL Less secure apps & your Google Account
Step 2 - Click on "Less secure app access" is on for your account "
Step 3 - Click on Go to the Less secure app access section of your Google Account. You might need to sign in.
Step 4 - Turn Allow less secure apps off.

See the screen shot screen.jpg
 
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rleiman

rleiman

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Alex_197 said:
Step 1 - open this URL Less secure apps & your Google Account
Step 2 - Click on "Less secure app access" is on for your account "
Step 3 - Click on Go to the Less secure app access section of your Google Account. You might need to sign in.
Step 4 - Turn Allow less secure apps off.

See the screen shotView attachment 102154
Click to expand...
Hi Alex,

We evaluated the pros and cons of automatic email and because it's not secure, we choose to go for the more secure route by not making the user enter their email credentials into the app and having the app call their email client so they can tap their send button from their email.
 
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A

Alex_197

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Check this one

B4X: 
    Dim in As Intent
    in.Initialize("android.intent.action.SENDTO", "mailto:")
    in.PutExtra("android.intent.extra.EMAIL", Array As String(EmailToStr))
    in.PutExtra("android.intent.extra.SUBJECT", "Some Subj")
    in.PutExtra("android.intent.extra.TEXT",  BodyStr)
    StartActivity(in)
 
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