Brevo¶
Anymail integrates with the Brevo email service (formerly Sendinblue), using their API v3. Brevo’s transactional API does not support some basic email features, such as inline images. Be sure to review the limitations below.
Changed in version 10.1: Brevo was called “Sendinblue” until May, 2023. To avoid unnecessary code changes, Anymail still uses the old name in code (settings, backend, webhook urls, etc.).
Important
Troubleshooting: If your Brevo messages aren’t being delivered as expected, be sure to look for events in your Brevo logs.
Brevo detects certain types of errors only after the send API call reports the message as “queued.” These errors appear in the logging dashboard.
Settings¶
EMAIL_BACKEND
To use Anymail’s Brevo backend, set:
EMAIL_BACKEND = "anymail.backends.sendinblue.EmailBackend"
in your settings.py.
SENDINBLUE_API_KEY
The API key can be retrieved from your Brevo SMTP & API settings on the “API Keys” tab (don’t try to use an SMTP key). Required.
Make sure the version column indicates “v3.” (v2 keys don’t work with Anymail. If you don’t see a v3 key listed, use “Create a New API Key”.)
ANYMAIL = { ... "SENDINBLUE_API_KEY": "<your v3 API key>", }
Anymail will also look for SENDINBLUE_API_KEY
at the
root of the settings file if neither ANYMAIL["SENDINBLUE_API_KEY"]
nor ANYMAIL_SENDINBLUE_API_KEY
is set.
SENDINBLUE_API_URL
The base url for calling the Brevo API.
The default is SENDINBLUE_API_URL = "https://api.brevo.com/v3/"
(It’s unlikely you would need to change this.)
Changed in version 10.1: Earlier Anymail releases used https://api.sendinblue.com/v3/
.
esp_extra support¶
To use Brevo features not directly supported by Anymail, you can
set a message’s esp_extra
to
a dict
that will be merged into the json sent to Brevo’s
smtp/email API.
For example, you could set Brevo’s batchId for use with their batched scheduled sending:
message.esp_extra = { 'batchId': '275d3289-d5cb-4768-9460-a990054b6c81', # merged into send params }
(You can also set "esp_extra"
in Anymail’s global send defaults
to apply it to all messages.)
Limitations and quirks¶
Brevo’s v3 API has several limitations. In most cases below,
Anymail will raise an AnymailUnsupportedFeature
error if you try to send a message using missing features. You can
override this by enabling the ANYMAIL_IGNORE_UNSUPPORTED_FEATURES
setting, and Anymail will try to limit the API request to features
Brevo can handle.
- HTML body required
Brevo’s API returns an error if you attempt to send a message with only a plain-text body. Be sure to include HTML content for your messages if you are not using a template.
(Brevo does allow HTML without a plain-text body. This is generally not recommended, though, as some email systems treat HTML-only content as a spam signal.)
- Inline images
Brevo’s v3 API doesn’t support inline images, at all. (Confirmed with Brevo support Feb 2018.)
If you are ignoring unsupported features, Anymail will try to send inline images as ordinary image attachments.
- Attachment names must be filenames with recognized extensions
Brevo determines attachment content type by assuming the attachment’s name is a filename, and examining that filename’s extension (e.g., “.jpg”).
Trying to send an attachment without a name, or where the name does not end in a supported filename extension, will result in a Brevo API error. Anymail has no way to communicate an attachment’s desired content-type to the Brevo API if the name is not set correctly.
- Single Reply-To
Brevo’s v3 API only supports a single Reply-To address.
If you are ignoring unsupported features and have multiple reply addresses, Anymail will use only the first one.
- Metadata
Anymail passes
metadata
to Brevo as a JSON-encoded string using their X-Mailin-custom email header. The metadata is available in tracking webhooks.- Delayed sending
New in version 9.0: Earlier versions of Anymail did not support
send_at
with Brevo.- No click-tracking or open-tracking options
Brevo does not provide a way to control open or click tracking for individual messages. Anymail’s
track_clicks
andtrack_opens
settings are unsupported.- No envelope sender overrides
Brevo does not support overriding
envelope_sender
on individual messages.
Batch sending/merge and ESP templates¶
Brevo supports ESP stored templates populated with
global merge data for all recipients, but does not offer batch sending
with per-recipient merge data. Anymail’s merge_data
and merge_metadata
message attributes are not
supported with the Brevo backend, but you can use Anymail’s
merge_global_data
with Brevo templates.
To use a Brevo template, set the message’s
template_id
to the numeric
Brevo template ID, and supply substitution attributes using
the message’s merge_global_data
:
message = EmailMessage( to=["[email protected]"] # single recipient... # ...multiple to emails would all get the same message # (and would all see each other's emails in the "to" header) ) message.template_id = 3 # use this Brevo template message.from_email = None # to use the template's default sender message.merge_global_data = { 'name': "Alice", 'order_no': "12345", 'ship_date': "May 15", }
Within your Brevo template body and subject, you can refer to merge
variables using Django-like template syntax, like {{ params.order_no }}
or
{{ params.ship_date }}
for the example above. See Brevo’s guide to the
Brevo Template Language.
The message’s from_email
(which defaults to
your DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL
setting) will override the template’s default sender.
If you want to use the template’s sender, be sure to set from_email
to None
after creating the message, as shown in the example above.
You can also override the template’s subject and reply-to address (but not body)
using standard EmailMessage
attributes.
Caution
Sendinblue “old template language” not supported
Sendinblue once supported two different template styles: a “new” template
language that uses Django-like template syntax (with {{ param.NAME }}
substitutions), and an “old” template language that used percent-delimited
%NAME%
substitutions.
Anymail 7.0 and later work only with new style templates, now known as the “Brevo Template Language.”
Although unconverted old templates may appear to work with Anymail, there can be
subtle bugs. In particular, reply_to
overrides and recipient display names
are silently ignored when old style templates are sent with Anymail 7.0 or later.
If you still have old style templates, follow Brevo’s instructions to
convert each old template to the new language.
Changed in version 7.0: Dropped support for Sendinblue old template language
Status tracking webhooks¶
If you are using Anymail’s normalized status tracking, add the url at Brevo’s site under Transactional > Email > Settings > Webhook.
The “URL to call” is:
https://random:random@yoursite.example.com/anymail/sendinblue/tracking/
random:random is an
ANYMAIL_WEBHOOK_SECRET
shared secretyoursite.example.com is your Django site
Be sure to select the checkboxes for all the event types you want to receive. (Also make sure you are in the “Transactional” section of their site; Brevo has a separate set of “Campaign” webhooks, which don’t apply to messages sent through Anymail.)
If you are interested in tracking opens, note that Brevo has both a “First opening” and an “Opened” event type, and will generate both the first time a message is opened. Anymail normalizes both of these events to “opened.” To avoid double counting, you should only enable one of the two.
Brevo will report these Anymail event_type
s:
queued, rejected, bounced, deferred, delivered, opened (see note above), clicked, complained,
unsubscribed, subscribed (though this should never occur for transactional email).
For events that occur in rapid succession, Brevo frequently delivers them out of order. For example, it’s not uncommon to receive a “delivered” event before the corresponding “queued.”
The event’s esp_event
field will be
a dict
of raw webhook data received from Brevo.
Inbound webhook¶
New in version 10.1.
If you want to receive email from Brevo through Anymail’s normalized inbound handling, follow Brevo’s Inbound parsing webhooks guide to enable inbound service and add Anymail’s inbound webhook.
At the “Creating the webhook” step, set the "url"
param to:
https://random:random@yoursite.example.com/anymail/sendinblue/inbound/
random:random is an
ANYMAIL_WEBHOOK_SECRET
shared secretyoursite.example.com is your Django site
Brevo does not currently seem to have a dashboard for managing or monitoring inbound service. However, you can run API calls directly from their documentation by entering your API key in “Header” field above the example, and then clicking “Try It!”. The webhooks management APIs and inbound events list API can be helpful for diagnosing inbound issues.