---
id: dj-email-url
version: "1.0.6"
license: BSD-2-Clause AND CC-BY-4.0 AND CC0-1.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: dormant
---

# dj-email-url — Use an URL to configure email backend settings in your Django Application.

License: permissive · Maintenance: dormant · Downloads: 220.3K/mo

## What it is and what it does

dj-email-url parses email backend configuration from URL-style environment variables and returns a dictionary of Django EMAIL_* settings. It eliminates the need to manually set EMAIL_HOST, EMAIL_PORT, EMAIL_USE_TLS, and related settings by encoding them into a single EMAIL_URL variable, following the 12-factor application pattern.

The package supports multiple backends: SMTP (local or remote with STARTTLS), SMTP-over-SSL, file-based, console, in-memory, and dummy backends. It handles URL percent-encoding for special characters in passwords and allows optional query parameters to set EMAIL_TIMEOUT, SERVER_EMAIL, and DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL. With no runtime dependencies, it integrates directly into Django settings.py with minimal setup.

Use it for:

- Store email configuration in environment variables for development, staging, and production without code changes
- Configure SendGrid or other third-party SMTP relays by parsing submission:// URLs with credentials
- Use file or console backends for local development by switching EMAIL_URL without modifying settings
- Set email timeout and origin addresses (SERVER_EMAIL, DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL) via query parameters in a single URL

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Configures Django email backends from environment variables using URL-style connection strings, following the 12-factor app pattern.

Yes, if you use Django and want to externalize email configuration to environment variables. The package is stable, dependency-free, and permissively licensed. However, note that maintenance is dormant (no release since September 2022); verify compatibility with your Django and Python versions before adopting, especially if you require recent Django LTS releases.

## Install

pip install dj-email-url
uv add dj-email-url
poetry add dj-email-url

## Installing dj-email-url

Before you install: Low install friction with no runtime dependencies. Maintenance is dormant—last release was 1420 days ago, though the repository remains active with a recent commit in June 2024.

License in practice: Licensed under BSD-2-Clause (source code), CC-BY-4.0 (documentation), and CC0-1.0 (config files). Permissive terms allow commercial use with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

import dj_email_url

email_config = dj_email_url.config()  # reads EMAIL_URL env var
# or parse directly:
email_config = dj_email_url.parse('smtp://user:pass@localhost')

vars().update(email_config)  # apply to Django settings

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package works with Django versions released after 2022-09-24
- Compatibility with Python 3.11+ (classifiers list only up to 3.10)

## Package facts

- License: BSD-2-Clause AND CC-BY-4.0 AND CC0-1.0 (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: dormant
- Downloads: 220.3K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

django email configuration url, environment variable email settings, 12factor email backend, django smtp url parser, email backend from env, django-config, 12factor

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/dj-email-url) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/dj-email-url/)