diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index d437e5343f..f1b80f4297 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
+++ b/AUTHORS
@@ -423,6 +423,7 @@ answer newbie questions, and generally made Django that much better:
     Jason Yan <tailofthesun@gmail.com>
     ye7cakf02@sneakemail.com
     ymasuda@ethercube.com
+    Jesse Young <adunar@gmail.com>
     Jarek Zgoda <jarek.zgoda@gmail.com>
     Cheng Zhang
 
diff --git a/django/core/mail.py b/django/core/mail.py
index 58588bf712..9ccf7a4d84 100644
--- a/django/core/mail.py
+++ b/django/core/mail.py
@@ -268,6 +268,10 @@ class EmailMessage(object):
 
     def send(self, fail_silently=False):
         """Sends the email message."""
+        if not self.recipients():
+            # Don't bother creating the network connection if there's nobody to
+            # send to.
+            return 0
         return self.get_connection(fail_silently).send_messages([self])
 
     def attach(self, filename=None, content=None, mimetype=None):
@@ -366,12 +370,16 @@ def send_mass_mail(datatuple, fail_silently=False, auth_user=None,
 
 def mail_admins(subject, message, fail_silently=False):
     """Sends a message to the admins, as defined by the ADMINS setting."""
+    if not settings.ADMINS:
+        return
     EmailMessage(settings.EMAIL_SUBJECT_PREFIX + subject, message,
                  settings.SERVER_EMAIL, [a[1] for a in settings.ADMINS]
                  ).send(fail_silently=fail_silently)
 
 def mail_managers(subject, message, fail_silently=False):
     """Sends a message to the managers, as defined by the MANAGERS setting."""
+    if not settings.MANAGERS:
+        return
     EmailMessage(settings.EMAIL_SUBJECT_PREFIX + subject, message,
                  settings.SERVER_EMAIL, [a[1] for a in settings.MANAGERS]
                  ).send(fail_silently=fail_silently)
diff --git a/tests/regressiontests/mail/tests.py b/tests/regressiontests/mail/tests.py
index c2c084c4c6..4317a66b79 100644
--- a/tests/regressiontests/mail/tests.py
+++ b/tests/regressiontests/mail/tests.py
@@ -2,7 +2,9 @@
 r"""
 # Tests for the django.core.mail.
 
->>> from django.core.mail import EmailMessage
+>>> from django.conf import settings
+>>> from django.core import mail
+>>> from django.core.mail import EmailMessage, mail_admins, mail_managers
 >>> from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy
 
 # Test normal ascii character case:
@@ -60,4 +62,30 @@ BadHeaderError: Header values can't contain newlines (got u'Subject\nInjection T
 >>> email.message().as_string()
 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable\nSubject: subject\nFrom: from@example.com\nTo: to@example.com\ndate: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 01:08:47 -0000\nMessage-ID: foo\n\ncontent'
 
+# Test that mail_admins/mail_managers doesn't connect to the mail server if there are no recipients (#9383)
+
+>>> old_admins = settings.ADMINS
+>>> old_managers = settings.MANAGERS
+>>> settings.ADMINS = []
+>>> settings.MANAGERS = []
+>>> mail.outbox = []
+>>> mail_admins('hi','there')
+>>> len(mail.outbox)
+0
+>>> mail.outbox = []
+>>> mail_managers('hi','there')
+>>> len(mail.outbox)
+0
+>>> settings.ADMINS = settings.MANAGERS = [('nobody','nobody@example.com')]
+>>> mail.outbox = []
+>>> mail_admins('hi','there')
+>>> len(mail.outbox)
+1
+>>> mail.outbox = []
+>>> mail_managers('hi','there')
+>>> len(mail.outbox)
+1
+>>> settings.ADMINS = old_admins
+>>> settings.MANAGERS = old_managers
+
 """