This is a secret Santa script that will automatically "pull from a hat" a recipient for each secret Santa, and then send an email to each secret Santa of who they have.
- Python3
- A gmail account for automatic emailing
git clone https://github.com/jmarkowski/secret-santa.git
Note: Currently, the secret Santa script only works if you have a gmail account available.
In order to allow your gmail account to be "used by the script" to automatically send emails, you must allow "less secure apps" to login:
- Log into the gmail account that will be used to automatically send the emails.
- Visit https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps
- Set the "Allow less secure apps" option to ON.
Open the config.py file and modify it for you and your circle of Santas.
$ ./send-letters.py
This will read the config.py script and do a "dry run" of the various
pairings between secret Santas and recipients. It will generate an output file
as specified in config.py (record_file).
If it runs without any errors, then you're ready to send the secret Santa emails.
$ ./send-letters.py --official
This will send out the emails and record what it sent into the file specified by
the record_file variable in config.py. Don't look at this (unless you want
to know who everyone's secret Santa is).
It will sequentially send emails to everyone.
Enjoy and have a Merry Christmas!
This quickly coded for fun to meet the "demands of Christmas". There are things that I would like to improve (or perhaps anyone else who would like to contribute?)
- Make the configuration file a standard input file format such as an INI or JSON (i.e. Don't make it a python configuration file)
- Make it compatible with non-gmail accounts
- Allow the email configuration to be tested