Django custom email backend: Dispatching emails via AutoSend REST API without SMTP

API & SMTP Integration
1

How do you implement a custom email backend in Django (django.core.mail.backends.base.BaseEmailBackend) using requests / httpx to send emails through AutoSend?

2

Django Custom Email Backend for AutoSend

By writing a custom BaseEmailBackend, all calls to django.core.mail.send_mail() and EmailMultiAlternatives seamlessly route through AutoSend.

1. Custom Backend (myapp/email_backend.py)

import requests
from django.conf import settings
from django.core.mail.backends.base import BaseEmailBackend

class AutoSendEmailBackend(BaseEmailBackend):
    def __init__(self, api_key=None, fail_silently=False, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(fail_silently=fail_silently, **kwargs)
        self.api_key = api_key or getattr(settings, "AUTOSEND_API_KEY", "")
        self.api_url = "https://api.autosend.com/v1/mails/send"

    def send_messages(self, email_messages):
        if not email_messages:
            return 0

        sent_count = 0
        headers = {
            "Authorization": f"Bearer {self.api_key}",
            "Content-Type": "application/json",
        }

        for msg in email_messages:
            payload = {
                "from": msg.from_email,
                "to": msg.to,
                "subject": msg.subject,
                "text": msg.body,
            }

            # Check for alternative HTML parts
            if hasattr(msg, "alternatives"):
                for content, mimetype in msg.alternatives:
                    if mimetype == "text/html":
                        payload["html"] = content
                        break

            try:
                res = requests.post(self.api_url, json=payload, headers=headers, timeout=10)
                res.raise_for_status()
                sent_count += 1
            except Exception as e:
                if not self.fail_silently:
                    raise e

        return sent_count

2. Configure settings.py

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'myapp.email_backend.AutoSendEmailBackend'
AUTOSEND_API_KEY = os.environ.get('AUTOSEND_API_KEY')
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = 'Notifications <notifications@yourdomain.com>'

Relevant Documentation