"The libgmail project is a pure Python binding to provide access to Google's Gmail web-mail service."

This post about pretty good library - libGmail. It's quite simple to send and retrieve mail from GMail service with it. You may also use Gmail account as POP or SMTP server with help of libGmail.

For example, I'm use this code to send e-mail for a new user:

    import libgmail
    ...
    def activation(request):
        to_email = request.user.email
        activation_link = http://dontbeevil.com/activate/%s/ % request.COOKIES["sessionid"]
        ga = libgmail.GmailAccount(dontbeevil@gmail.com, "ourpassword")
        ga.login()
        subject = "Service administator"
        msg = "Dear user! To activate your account follow this link: %s" % activation_link
        gmsg = libgmail.GmailComposedMessage(to_email, subject, msg)
        ga.sendMessage(gmsg)
    ...