Tempx.

Selenium email testing

Selenium suites usually stop at did the app say “check your inbox”. With a dozen lines of Python they can assert on the actual email: right sender, right subject, right code. The inbox side is a free REST API — no SMTP server, no Gmail app password.

The inbox helper

# tempx_helper.py
import re, time, requests

TEMPX = "https://tempx.uk/api/inbox"

def wait_for_message(address, subject_re=None, timeout=45, interval=2):
    """Poll the Tempx inbox API until a matching message arrives."""
    deadline = time.time() + timeout
    pattern = re.compile(subject_re, re.I) if subject_re else None
    while time.time() < deadline:
        resp = requests.get(TEMPX, params={"address": address}, timeout=10)
        resp.raise_for_status()
        for msg in resp.json()["messages"]:
            if pattern is None or pattern.search(msg["subject"] or ""):
                return msg
        time.sleep(interval)
    raise TimeoutError("no matching email for " + address + " within "
                       + str(timeout) + "s")

A complete test

# test_signup.py
import re, time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from tempx_helper import wait_for_message

def test_signup_sends_verification_code(driver):
    addr = "sel-" + str(int(time.time())) + "@tempx.uk"

    driver.get("https://staging.example.com/signup")
    driver.find_element(By.ID, "email").send_keys(addr)
    driver.find_element(By.ID, "password").send_keys("correct-horse-battery")
    driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "button[type=submit]").click()

    msg = wait_for_message(addr, subject_re=r"verify")
    assert "noreply@example.com" in msg["from"]

    code = re.search(r"\b(\d{6})\b", msg["preview"]).group(1)
    driver.find_element(By.ID, "code").send_keys(code)
    driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//button[.='Verify']").click()
    assert "Welcome" in driver.page_source

Notes for real suites

Give the suite a mailbox

Drop the helper in, point it at your staging signup, and delete the last time.sleep(20).

Open an inbox

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