📸 Ephemere — Automated Photo Delivery Script

This script automatically sends personalized emails with:

• A fully formatted HTML email (with inline images such as the logo or icons)
• A ZIP file containing the recipient’s photos
• Gmail SMTP authentication
• Automatic JPEG renaming + ZIP creation
• Automatic archival of processed files

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✅ 1. Requirements

Python

You must have Python 3.9+ installed.

Check your version:

python3 --version

If missing, install Python from: https://www.python.org/downloads/

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✅ 2. Install Dependencies

From the project root, run:

python3 -m pip install beautifulsoup4

No other external packages are required (everything else is in the Python standard library).

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✅ 3. Project Structure

Your repository should look like this:

/project-root
│
├── send_photos.py        # Your script
├── email.html            # HTML template for your email
├── Ephemere_Logo_Cropped_Black.png
├── icon_flickr.svg
├── icon_instagram.svg
├── icon_discord.svg
│
├── to_send/              # Input folder
│   ├── recipient1@email.com/
│   │   ├── photo1.jpg
│   │   ├── photo2.jpg
│   │   └── ...
│   ├── someone_else@gmail.com/
│   │   ├── ...
│   └── ...
│
└── sent/                 # Auto-generated archive output

Important

• to_send/ must exist.
• Inside to_send/, create a folder named exactly as the recipient's email address.
• Put their .jpg/.jpeg photos inside.
• The script will rename, zip, send, then move the ZIP file into /sent.

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✅ 4. Configure Gmail

The script uses Gmail SMTP with an App Password.

Steps:

1. Enable 2-factor authentication on your Google account
2. Go to Security → App Passwords
3. Generate a new password
4. Paste it in the script:

GMAIL_ADDRESS = "SENDER_EMAIL"
GMAIL_APP_PASSWORD = "APP_PASSWORD"

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✅ 5. How the Script Works

1. Load email.html

• Reads your HTML template
• Finds all <img src="./...">
• Embeds them as inline images using CID
• Rewrites the HTML so images display correctly in email clients

2. Process each recipient folder

For each folder inside to_send/:

1. Rename photos → image_01.jpeg, image_02.jpeg, …

2. ZIP the folder into recipient_email.zip

3. Send the email:

   • HTML body
   • Inline logo/icons
   • ZIP attachment

4. Move the ZIP to /sent

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✅ 6. Run the Script

From the repo root:

python3 send_photos.py

You will see logs like:

Processing example@gmail.com...
✅ Sent email to example@gmail.com
📦 Moved example@gmail.com and its zip to 'sent'

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❗ Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Email images not displaying	Check <img src="./yourfile.ext"> paths and ensure the file exists next to email.html.
Gmail blocks the login	Make sure you're using an App Password, not your normal one.
Script finds no folders	Ensure to_send/ contains subfolders named after actual email addresses.

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