Android: Send e-mail with attachment automatically in the background

Question

I am making an app that allows the user to take a picture and send it automatically via email to the email he chooses. So far I was able to take a picture and store in the SD card. Now I only need functions that get the picture from the folder (/sdcard/Pictures/PhotoSender/) and send automatically to the e-mail the user has requested. How can I do this?

I have the picture in that folder. I just need some functions to generate the e-mail, put the picture (.jpg) as an attachment and send (all this on background). When the e-mail gets totally sent, a toast should pop up saying "Upload Done". Meanwhile the user should be free to take more pictures, so the uploading requests should be put on a queue. The user shouldn't login with his e-mail account to send. If needed, I can create an e-mail account for my app to be the "sender". Please help me!

Answer 1

Below is a complete class that supports sending emails with attachments in Android

And here is a utility function to send mail with attachment where the attachment in your case is simply the picture(s) file complete path

public static boolean sendEmail(String to, String from, String subject,                                          
                               String message,String[] attachements) throws Exception {     
    Mail mail = new Mail();
    if (subject != null && subject.length() > 0) {
        mail.setSubject(subject);
    } else {
        mail.setSubject("Subject");
    }

    if (message != null && message.length() > 0) {
        mail.setBody(message);
    } else {
        mail.setBody("Message");
    }

    mail.setTo(new String[] {to});

    if (attachements != null) {
        for (String attachement : attachements) {       
            mail.addAttachment(attachement);
        }
    }
    return mail.send();
}

Here is the complete Mail class that is used in the above function

import java.io.File;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Properties;

import javax.activation.CommandMap;
import javax.activation.DataHandler;
import javax.activation.DataSource;
import javax.activation.FileDataSource;
import javax.activation.MailcapCommandMap;
import javax.mail.BodyPart;
import javax.mail.Multipart;
import javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Transport;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeBodyPart;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMultipart;

public class Mail extends javax.mail.Authenticator {
private String user;
private String password;

private String[] to;
private String from;

private String port;
private String sport;

private String host;

private String subject;
private String body;

private boolean _auth;

private boolean _debuggable;

private Multipart multipart;

public String getPassword() {
    return password;
}

public void setPassword(String password) {
    this.password = password;
}

public String[] getTo() {
    return to;
}

public void setTo(String[] to) {
    this.to = to;
}

public String getFrom() {
    return from;
}

public void setFrom(String from) {
    this.from = from;
}

public String getHost() {
    return host;
}

public void setHost(String host) {
    this.host = host;
}

public String getSubject() {
    return subject;
}

public void setSubject(String subject) {
    this.subject = subject;
}

public Multipart getMultipart() {
    return multipart;
}

public void setMultipart(Multipart multipart) {
    this.multipart = multipart;
}

public Mail() {
    host = "smtp.googlemail.com"; // default smtp server
    port = "465"; // default smtp port
    sport = "465"; // default socketfactory port

    user = ""; // username
    password = ""; // password
    from = ""; // email sent from
    subject = ""; // email subject
    body = ""; // email body

    _debuggable = false; // debug mode on or off - default off
    _auth = true; // smtp authentication - default on

    multipart = new MimeMultipart();

    // There is something wrong with MailCap, javamail can not find a
    // handler for the multipart/mixed part, so this bit needs to be added.
    MailcapCommandMap mc = (MailcapCommandMap) CommandMap
            .getDefaultCommandMap();
    mc.addMailcap("text/html;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_html");
    mc.addMailcap("text/xml;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_xml");
    mc.addMailcap("text/plain;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_plain");
    mc.addMailcap("multipart/*;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.multipart_mixed");
    mc.addMailcap("message/rfc822;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.message_rfc822");
    CommandMap.setDefaultCommandMap(mc);
}

public Mail(String user, String pass) {
    this();

    this.user = user;
    password = pass;
}

public boolean send() throws Exception {
    Properties props = _setProperties();

    if (!user.equals("") && !password.equals("") && to.length > 0
            && !from.equals("") && !subject.equals("") && !body.equals("")) {
        Session session = Session.getInstance(props, this);

        MimeMessage msg = new MimeMessage(session);

        msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));

        InternetAddress[] addressTo = new InternetAddress[to.length];
        for (int i = 0; i < to.length; i++) {
            addressTo[i] = new InternetAddress(to[i]);
        }
        msg.setRecipients(MimeMessage.RecipientType.TO, addressTo);

        msg.setSubject(subject);
        msg.setSentDate(new Date());

        // setup message body
        BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
        messageBodyPart.setText(body);
        multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);

        // Put parts in message
        msg.setContent(multipart);

        // send email
        Transport.send(msg);

        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

public void addAttachment(String filename) throws Exception {
    BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
    DataSource source = new FileDataSource(filename);
    messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
    messageBodyPart.setFileName(new File(filename).getName());

    multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
}

@Override
public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
    return new PasswordAuthentication(user, password);
}

private Properties _setProperties() {
    Properties props = new Properties();

    props.put("mail.smtp.host", host);

    if (_debuggable) {
        props.put("mail.debug", "true");
    }

    if (_auth) {
        props.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
    }

    props.put("mail.smtp.port", port);
    props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", sport);
    props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class",
            "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
    props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.fallback", "false");

    return props;
}

// the getters and setters
public String getBody() {
    return body;
}

public void setBody(String _body) {
    this.body = _body;
}
}

Note:

• You will need activiation.jar and mail.jar in your classpath i.e. JavaMail API
• The code should run from AsynchTask or dedicated Thread