Introduction:

Configuring email settings in a Django application is a crucial aspect of ensuring effective communication with users, whether it's for sending notifications, password resets, or other important messages. By utilizing environment variables to manage these settings, you gain flexibility, security, and scalability in your application deployment.

In this guide, we'll walk through the steps to configure email settings in your Django application using environment variables. By following these steps, you'll be able to seamlessly update your email configuration without the need to modify your application code, enhancing maintainability and ease of deployment. Let's dive in!

Prerequisites

Before proceeding, ensure you have administrative access to the server where the Django application is hosted and the ability to modify environment variables and restart the server.

Step 1: Access Environment Variable Settings

The email settings are stored in environment variables. You will need to locate and modify these variables, which might be set in your server's environment or a configuration file.

Step 2: Update Email Settings

Here's how to update each component of the email configuration:

EMAIL_HOST_USER (Sender Email Address)

• Linux/Unix/MacOS:

1. Open your terminal.
2. Edit the file where your environment variables are set (e.g., .bashrc, .zshrc).
3. Change the EMAIL_HOST_USER value to your new sender email.

• Windows:

1. Search for “Environment Variables” and select “Edit the system environment variables”.
2. Find EMAIL_HOST_USER and update the email address.

EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD (Email Account Password)

• All Operating Systems: Follow the same steps as above for EMAIL_HOST_USER, but modify the EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD variable.

EMAIL_HOST (Email Account Provider)

• All Operating Systems: Follow the same steps as above for EMAIL_HOST_USER, but modify the EMAIL_HOST variable.

EMAIL_PORT (Email Server Port)

• All Operating Systems: Similarly, update the EMAIL_PORT environment variable to reflect the new port number if this is also changing.

Step 3: Apply Changes

After updating the environment variables:

1. Save any changes.
2. Reload your environment settings or restart your terminal session.
3. Restart your Django application to apply the changes.

For production, use the appropriate command to restart your application server (like Gunicorn, uWSGI, Apache, or Nginx).

Step 4: Verify the New Settings

Send a test email from your Django application to ensure all settings are correctly updated and the email functionality works as expected.