Page Contents
- Introduction
- Features
- Contributing
- Synopsis
- Version
- Downloading and Installing
- Compiling
- Docker
- Examples
- Show SMTP server information
- Send mail with a text message
- Send mail with a HTML message
- Attach a PDF file
- Attach a PDF file and an image
- Attach a PDF file and embed an image
- Set Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon copy
- Send mail to a list of users
- Add Custom Headers
- Write logs to a file
- Specify a different character set
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- License (is MIT)
- See Also
Introduction
mailsend-go is a command line tool to send mail via SMTP protocol. This is the
golang incarnation of my C version of
mailsend. However, this version is much
simpler and all the heavy lifting is done by the package
gomail.v2
If you use mailsend, please consider using mailsend-go as no new features will be added to mailsend.
If you have any question, request or suggestion, please enter it in the Issues with appropriate label.
Features
- Add a mail body
- Support Multiple Attachments
- Supports ESMTP Authentication
- Supports StartTLS and SSL
- Send mail to a list of users
- Show SMTP server info
- Fixes issues of mailsend
Contributing
Please send a pull request if you add features, fix bugs or update the documentation.
If you want to update the documentation, please do not update README.md directly,
rather update the Markdown files in docs/ directory. README.md
is generated by markdown_helper ruby gem by
assembling the individual Markdown files in the docs/ directory. If you
would like to generate README.md, type make gen (you will need required tools of
course)
Synopsis
Version: @($) mailsend-go v1.0.10
mailsend-go [options]
Where the options are:
-debug - Print debug messages
-sub subject - Subject
-t to,to..* - email address/es of the recipient/s. Required
-list file - file with list of email addresses.
Syntax is: Name, email_address
-fname name - name of sender
-f address* - email address of the sender. Required
-cc cc,cc.. - carbon copy addresses
-bcc bcc,bcc.. - blind carbon copy addresses
-rt rt - reply to address
-smtp host/IP - hostname/IP address of the SMTP server. Required
unless '-use' is set.
-use mailprovider - Arranges -smtp, -port and -ssl for you when using
a well known mailprovider. Allowed values:
gmail, yahoo, outlook, gmx, zoho, aol
-port port - port of SMTP server. Default is 587
-domain domain - domain name for SMTP HELO. Default is localhost
-info - Print info about SMTP server
-ssl - SMTP over SSL. Default is StartTLS
-verifyCert - Verify Certificate in connection. Default is No
-ex - show examples
-help - show this help
-q - quiet
-log filePath - write log messages to this file
-cs charset - Character set for text/HTML. Default is utf-8
-V - show version and exit
auth - Auth Command
-user username* - username for ESMTP authentication. Required
-pass password* - password for EMSPTP authentication. Required
body - body command for attachment for mail body
-msg msg - message to show as body
-file path - or path of a text/HTML file
-mime-type type - MIME type of the body content. Default is detected
attach - attach command. Repeat for multiple attachments
-file path* - path of the attachment. Required
-name name - name of the attachment. Default is filename
-mime-type type - MIME-Type of the attachment. Default is detected
-inline - Set Content-Disposition to "inline".
Default is "attachment"
header - Header Command. Repeat for multiple headers
-name header - Header name
-value value - Header value
The options with * are required.
Environment variables:
SMTP_USER_PASS for auth password (-pass)
Version
The current version of mailsend-go is 1.0.10, released on Dec-06-2020
Please look at ChangeLog for what has changed in the current version.
Downloading and Installing
Pre-compiled mailsend-go binaries are available for the following platforms:
- Windows - 32 and 64 bit (zip, Scoop)
- Linux - 64 bit (tgz, debian and rpm)
- MacOS - 64 bit (tgz, Homebrew)
- Raspberry pi - 32 bit (debian, rpm)
Please download the binaries from the releases page.
Please add an issue if you would need binaries for any other platforms.
Before installing, please make sure to verify the checksum.
When the tgz or zip archives are extracted they create a directory mailsend-go-dir/ with the
content.
Example
$ tar -tvf mailsend-go_x.x.x_linux_64-bit.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 0 muquit staff 1081 Jan 26 15:21 mailsend-go-dir/LICENSE.txt
-rw-r--r-- 0 muquit staff 14242 Jan 27 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/README.md
-rw-r--r-- 0 muquit staff 16866 Jan 27 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/docs/mailsend-go.1
-rwxr-xr-x 0 muquit staff 5052992 Feb 9 19:23 mailsend-go-dir/mailsend-go
$ unzip -l mailsend-go_x.x.x_windows_64-bit.zip
Archive: mailsend-go_x.x.x_windows_64-bit.zip
Length Date Time Name
--------- ---------- ----- ----
1081 01-26-2019 15:21 mailsend-go-dir/LICENSE.txt
14242 01-27-2019 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/README.md
16866 01-27-2019 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/docs/mailsend-go.1
4933632 02-09-2019 19:23 mailsend-go-dir/mailsend-go.exe
--------- -------
4965821 4 files
Installing using Homebrew on Mac
You will need to install Homebrew first.
Install
First install the custom tap.
$ brew tap
$ brew untap muquit/mailsend-go
$ brew tap muquit/mailsend-go
$ brew install mailsend-go
Uninstall
$ brew uninstall mailsend-go
Installing the debian package on Ubuntu or Debian or Raspberry pi
Inspect the package content
$ dpkg -c mailsend-go_linux_64-bit.deb
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/docs/
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/docs/mailsend-go/
-rw-r--r-- 0/0 1081 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/docs/mailsend-go/LICENSE.txt
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/bin/
-rwxr-xr-x 0/0 5052992 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/bin/mailsend-go
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/man/
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/man/man1/
-rw-r--r-- 0/0 20896 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/man/man1/mailsend-go.1
-rw-r--r-- 0/0 19236 2019-02-10 20:17 usr/local/share/docs/mailsend-go/README.md
Install
$ sudo dpkg -i mailsend-go_linux_64-bit.deb
Selecting previously unselected package mailsend-go.
(Reading database ... 4039 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack mailsend-go_linux_64-bit.deb ...
Unpacking mailsend-go (x.x.x) ...
Setting up mailsend-go (x.x.x) ...
$ mailsend-go -V
@(#) mailsend-go vx.x.x
Uninstall
$ sudo dpkg -r mailsend-go
Install the RPM package
Inspect the package content
$ rpm -qlp mailsend-go_linux_64-bit.rpm
/usr/local/bin/mailsend-go
/usr/local/share/docs/mailsend-go/LICENSE.txt
/usr/local/share/docs/mailsend-go/README.md
/usr/local/share/man/man1/mailsend-go.1
Install/Upgrade
# rpm -Uvh mailsend-go_linux_64-bit.rpm
# mailsend-go -V
@(#) mailsend-go vx.x.x
Uninstall
# rpm -ev mailsend-go
Install from archive
Inspect the content
$ tar -tvf mailsend-go_x.x.x_linux_64-bit.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 0 muquit staff 1081 Jan 26 15:21 mailsend-go-dir/LICENSE.txt
-rw-r--r-- 0 muquit staff 14242 Jan 27 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/README.md
-rw-r--r-- 0 muquit staff 16866 Jan 27 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/docs/mailsend-go.1
-rwxr-xr-x 0 muquit staff 5052992 Feb 9 19:23 mailsend-go-dir/mailsend-go
$ unzip -l mailsend-go_x.x.x_windows_64-bit.zip
Archive: mailsend-go_x.x.x_windows_64-bit.zip
Length Date Time Name
--------- ---------- ----- ----
1081 01-26-2019 15:21 mailsend-go-dir/LICENSE.txt
14242 01-27-2019 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/README.md
16866 01-27-2019 13:47 mailsend-go-dir/docs/mailsend-go.1
4933632 02-09-2019 19:23 mailsend-go-dir/mailsend-go.exe
--------- -------
4965821 4 files
Install Linux
$ tar -xf mailsend-go_x.x.x_linux_64-bit.tar.gz
$ sudo cp mailsend-go-dir/mailsend-go /usr/local/bin
$ sudo cp mailsend-go-dir/doc/mailsend-go.1 /usr/local/share/man/man1
Install Windows
Installing using Scoop on Windows
You will need to install Scoop first.
Install
c:\> scoop install mailsend-goUninstall
c:\> scoop uninstall mailsend-goInstalling Manually
After downloading the latest .zip file (e.g., mailsend-go_x.x.x_windows_64-bit.zip), unzip it, and copy mailsend-go-dir\mailsend-go.exe somewhere in your PATH or run it from the directory.
Compiling
Compiling from scratch requires the Go programming language toolchain and git. Note: mailsend-go uses go modules for dependency management.
To install the binary:
$ go install github.com/muquit/mailsend-go@latest
The binary will be installed at $GOPATH/bin/ directory.
If you see the error message go: cannot find main module; see 'go help modules', make sure GO111MODULE environment variable is not set to on. Unset it by
typing unset GO111MODULE
To compile yourself:
- If you are using very old version of go, install dependencies by typing:
$ git clone https://github.com/muquit/mailsend-go.git
$ cd mailsend-go
$ make tools
$ make
- If you are using go 1.11+, dependencies will be installed via go modules. If you cloned mailsend-go inside your $GOPATH, you have to set env var:
$ export GO111MODULE=on
- Finally compile mailsend-go by typing:
$ make
As mailsend-go uses go modules, it can be built outside $GOPATH e.g.
$ cd /tmp
$ git clone https://github.com/muquit/mailsend-go.git
$ cd mailsend-go
$ make
$ ./mailsend-go -V
@(#) mailsend-go v1.0.1
- List the packages used (if you are outside $GOPATH)
$ go list -m "all"
github.com/muquit/mailsend-go
gopkg.in/alexcesaro/quotedprintable.v3 v3.0.0-20150716171945-2caba252f4dc
gopkg.in/gomail.v2 v2.0.0-20160411212932-81ebce5c23df
Type make help for more targets:
Docker
-
Building for docker can be done with
docker build -t mailsend-go .. This will also fetch the golang image and create a intermediate image (about 820MB in total). If space is a concern for you, remove them withdocker rmi golang:1.13.7anddocker image prune -
Running with docker can be done as any other docker image. Everything after the image name will be passed to the program. Example:
docker run -it --rm mailsend-go -Vwill show the version
Examples
Each example mailsend-go command is a single line. In Unix back slash \ can be used to continue in the next line. Also in Unix, use single quotes instead of double quotes, otherwise if input has any shell character like $ etc, it will get expanded by the shell.
Show SMTP server information
StartTLS will be used if server supports it
mailsend-go -info -smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587
[S] 220 smtp.gmail.com ESMTP k185-v6sm17739711qkd.27 - gsmtp
[C] HELO localhost
[C] EHLO localhost
[S] 250-smtp.gmail.com at your service, [x.x.x.x]
[S] 250-SIZE 35882577
[S] 250-8BITMIME
[S] 250-STARTTLS
[S] 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
[S] 250-PIPELINING
[S] 250-CHUNKING
[S] 250-SMTPUTF8
[C] STARTTLS
[S] 220-2.0.0 Ready to start TLS
[C] EHLO localhost
[S] 250-smtp.gmail.com at your service, [x.x.x.x]
[S] 250-SIZE 35882577
[S] 250-8BITMIME
[S] 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN XOAUTH2 PLAIN-CLIENTTOKEN OAUTHBEARER XOAUTH
[S] 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
[S] 250-PIPELINING
[S] 250-CHUNKING
[S] 250-SMTPUTF8
Certificate of smtp.gmail.com:
Version: 3 (0x3)
Serial Number: 149685795415515161014990164765 (0x1e3a9301cfc7206383f9a531d)
Signature Algorithm: SHA256-RSA
Subject: CN=Google Internet Authority G3,O=Google Trust Services,C=US
Issuer: GlobalSign
Not before: 2017-06-15 00:00:42 +0000 UTC
Not after: 2021-12-15 00:00:42 +0000 UTC
[C] QUIT
[S] 221-2.0.0 closing connection k185-v6sm17739711qkd.27 - gsmtp
Use SSL. Note the port is different
mailsend-go -info -smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 465 -ssl
Use default settings for well known mail providers
Don't worry about the settings of -smtp, -port and -ssl for well known mail providers. This works for gmail, yahoo, outlook, gmx, zoho and aol.
mailsend-go -info -use gmail
Send mail with a text message
Notice "auth" is a command and it takes -user and -pass arguments. "body" is also a command and here it took -msg as an argument. The command "body" can not repeat, if specified more than once, the last one will be used.
mailsend-go -sub "Test" -smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-from "[email protected]" -to "[email protected]" \
body \
-msg "hello, world!\nThis is a message"
The embedded new line \n will be converted to a real newline and the final message will show up as two lines.
The environment variable "SMTP_USER_PASS" can be used instead of the flag
-pass.
Send mail with a HTML message
mailsend-go -sub "Test" \
-smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-from "[email protected]" \
-to "[email protected]" -from "[email protected]" \
body \
-msg "<b>hello, world!</b>"
Attach a PDF file
MIME type will be detected. Content-Disposition will be set to "attachment", Content-Transfer-Encoding will be "Base64". Notice, "attach" is a command it took -file as an arg. The command "attach" can repeat.
mailsend-go -sub "Test" \
-smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-from "[email protected]" \
-to "[email protected]" -from "[email protected]" \
body \
-msg "A PDF file is attached" \
attach \
-file "/path/file.pdf"
The name of the attachment will be file.pdf. To change the attachmetn name,
use the -name flag. e.g.
attach -file "/path/file.pdf" -name "report.pdf"
Attach a PDF file and an image
Notice, the "attach" command is repeated here.
mailsend-go -sub "Test" \
-smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-from "[email protected]" \
-to "[email protected]" -from "[email protected]" \
body \
-msg "A PDF file and a PNG file is attached" \
attach \
-file "/path/file.pdf" \
attach \
-file "/path/file.png"
Attach a PDF file and embed an image
Content-Disposition for the image will be set to "inline". It's an hint to the mail reader to display the image on the page. Note: it is just a hint, it is up to the mail reader to respect it or ignore it.
mailsend-go -sub "Test" \
-smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-from "[email protected]" \
-to "[email protected]" -from "[email protected]" \
body \
-msg "A PDF file is attached, image should be displayed inline" \
attach \
-file "/path/file.pdf" \
attach \
-file "/path/file.png" \
-inline
Set Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon copy
mailsend-go -sub "Testing -cc and -bcc" \
-smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-to [email protected] \
-f "[email protected]" \
-cc "[email protected],[email protected]" \
-bcc "[email protected]" \
body -msg "Testing Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon copy"
Cc addresses will be visible to the recipients but Bcc address will not be.
Send mail to a list of users
Create a file with list of users. The syntax is Name,email_address in a line. Name can be empty but comma must be specified. Example of a list file:
# This is a comment.
# The syntax is Name,email address in a line. Name can be empty but comma
# must be specified
John Snow,[email protected]
Mary Jane,[email protected]
,[email protected]
Specify the list file with -list flag.
mailsend-go -sub "Test sending mail to a list of users" \
-smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-f "[email protected]" \
-to "[email protected]" \
body \
-msg "This is a test of sendmail mail to a list of users" \
attach \
-file "cat.jpg" \
attach \
-file "flower.jpg" \
-inline \
-list "list.txt"
Add Custom Headers
Use the command "header" to add custom headers. The command "header" can be repeated.
mailsend-go -sub "Testing custom headers" \
-smtp smtp.gmail.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-to [email protected] \
-f "[email protected]" \
body -msg "Testing adding Custom headers"
header \
-name "X-MyHeader-1" -value "Value of X-MyHeader-1" \
header \
-name "X-MyHeader-2" -value "Value of X-MyHeader-2"
Write logs to a file
Use the flag -log path_of_log_file.txt
mailsend-go -sub "test log" \
-smtp smtp.example.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-to [email protected] \
-f "[email protected]" \
body -msg "Testing log file" \
-log "/tmp/mailsend-go.log"
Specify a different character set
The default character set is utf-8
mailsend-go -sub "test character set" \
-smtp smtp.example.com -port 587 \
auth \
-user [email protected] -pass "secret" \
-to [email protected] \
-from "[email protected]" \
-subject "Testing Big5 Charset" \
-cs "Big5" \
body -msg "ä¸æ–‡æ¸¬è©¦"
(Generated from docs/examples.md)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. How to send mail via smtp.gmail.com?
From May 30, 2022, Google no longer supports the use of third-party apps to sign in to Google Account using username and password. However, an app-specific password can be set for mailsend-go to send mail via smtp.gmail.com. Here are the steps:
- Login to your gmail account
- Click on the Profile icon at the right side and then click on Manage your Google Account
- Click on Security link from the list on the left sidebar.
- Now you have to enable 2FA (Two Factor Authentication). Think carefully if you are going to do that for your main account. I used a test account and it does not seem to ask for 2FA code while sending email using smtp.gmail.com. However, it will require to enter 2FA code when you login to gmail.com. By default it sends 2FA code to your phone#, which is not secure. Configure to use Google Authenticator App instead for 2FA.
- After 2FA is enabled, Click on Security link again. Generate the app specific password by clicking on the App Passwords link. Specify mailsend-go as the app (I don't think it matters).
- Use the username and this app specific password to send mail via smtp.gmail.com. It does not seem to ask for 2FA code.
If there are any gotchas or need more clarification, please send a pull request or update Issue #49 with your experience and I will update the FAQ.
-- updated: Jul-01-2022
License (is MIT)
License is MIT
Copyright © 2018-2022 [email protected]
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
See Also
Original mailsend (in C)
- This file is assembled from docs/*.md with markdown_helper
- The software is released with goreleaser