twilio-email-send

Overview

Agent safety: Always confirm recipients, subject, and content with the user before sending. Email is irreversible once delivered. Never send email autonomously without explicit user approval — especially for batch sends to multiple recipients.

Twilio Email is a separate product from SendGrid. Both send email, but they use different APIs, credentials, templating languages, and endpoints. If you have a SendGrid API key (SG.-prefix), use twilio-sendgrid-email-send instead.

Authentication

The API uses Basic Authentication with either:

• Account SID + Auth Token
• API Key SID + API Key Secret

These are standard Twilio credentials — the same ones used for SMS, Voice, and other Twilio APIs.

Send a Simple Email

POST https://comms.twilio.com/v1/Emails

The endpoint is asynchronous — it returns 202 Accepted with an operationId, not a delivery confirmation.

curl -X POST "https://comms.twilio.com/v1/Emails" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "from": {
      "address": "support@example.com",
      "name": "Support Team"
    },
    "to": [
      {
        "address": "john.doe@example.com",
        "name": "John Doe"
      }
    ],
    "content": {
      "subject": "Your subject line",
      "html": "<p>Your message content in HTML format.</p>",
      "text": "Your message content in plain text."
    }
  }' \
  -u $TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID:$TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN

Response (202 Accepted):

{
  "operationId": "...",
  "operationLocation": "https://comms.twilio.com/v1/Emails/Operations/..."
}

Poll operationLocation to track delivery status.

Batch Sending

Send the same message to multiple recipients in a single request by adding entries to the to array. Maximum 10,000 recipients per request.

{
  "from": {
    "address": "support@example.com",
    "name": "Support Team"
  },
  "to": [
    {
      "address": "john.doe@example.com",
      "name": "John Doe"
    },
    {
      "address": "jane.smith@example.com",
      "name": "Jane Smith"
    }
  ],
  "content": {
    "subject": "Your subject line",
    "html": "<p>Your message content in HTML format.</p>",
    "text": "Your message content in plain text."
  }
}

Liquid Personalization

Use Liquid templating in the content.subject, content.html, and content.text fields. For each variable referenced (e.g. {{firstName}}), provide a matching key in the variables object for every recipient in the to array.

{
  "from": {
    "address": "noreply@example.com",
    "name": "Support Team"
  },
  "to": [
    {
      "address": "alice@example.com",
      "name": "Alice",
      "variables": {"firstName": "Alice", "orderId": "123"}
    },
    {
      "address": "bob@example.com",
      "name": "Bob",
      "variables": {"firstName": "Bob", "orderId": "456"}
    }
  ],
  "content": {
    "subject": "Hi {{firstName}}, your order update",
    "html": "<p>Hi {{firstName}}, order #{{orderId}} has shipped.</p>",
    "text": "Hi {{firstName}}, order #{{orderId}} has shipped."
  }
}

Ensure every recipient has all referenced variables defined.

Operation Tracking

After submitting a send, use the Operation resource to monitor batch status.

1. Submit email via POST /v1/emails — response includes operationId and operationLocation
2. Poll status via GET to the operationLocation URI
3. The operation tracks progress for the entire batch

This is especially important for large recipient lists where processing is not instantaneous.

Error Codes

Validation errors return as many issues as possible in a single response to help debug quickly.

CANNOT

• Cannot use SendGrid API keys — Twilio Email uses Twilio Account SID + Auth Token or API Key SID + Secret. SG.-prefix keys do not work. Use twilio-sendgrid-email-send for SendGrid.
• Cannot send more than 10,000 recipients per request — Split into multiple requests for larger lists.
• Cannot exceed 10MB per message — Total size including attachments must be under 10MB (smaller than SendGrid's 30MB limit).
• Cannot use Unicode in the from field — Unicode encoding is not supported for sender addresses.
• Cannot use Handlebars templating — Twilio Email uses Liquid, not Handlebars. If you see {{#if}} or {{#each}}, that's Handlebars/SendGrid syntax.
• Cannot get synchronous delivery confirmation — The API is async. 202 Accepted means queued, not delivered. Poll the Operation resource for status.
• Tags total length cannot exceed 10,000 bytes — Combined length of all tags on a request is limited.

Next Steps

• Account setup and credentials: twilio-account-setup
• SendGrid email (separate product): twilio-sendgrid-email-send
• SMS sending: twilio-sms-send-message

Prerequisites

• A Twilio account — see twilio-account-setup for signup and credentials
• A Verified Sender: an approved domain identity configured in the Twilio console that must match the from address domain
• Compliance with regional anti-spam regulations (CAN-SPAM, GDPR)

For a complete setup guide, see the Email Onboarding guide in the Twilio console.