cmail - easy cli tool to send emails from command line

cli utility to send emails from command line (plain text/mime/attachments) w/o a need for any prior setups:

• sends email in plain text or mime/base64
• supports sending attachments
• works over smtp and smtps

Linux and MacOS precompiled binaries are available for download:

• macOS 64 bit
• macOS 32 bit
• Linux (to be published)

Compile and install instructions (for Mac os):

building cmail requires also compiling curl (as mac os x's distribution is not good enough (yet) to support mime). Thus assuming here that all downloads go into ~/Downloads folder:

1. Download curl-7.61.1.zip (or higher)
2. open terminal and run:

• cd ~/Downloads/
• unzip curl-7.61.1.zip
• cd cd curl-7.61.1
• export CFLAGS="-Ofast"
• ./configure --disable-dict --disable-file --disable-ftp --disable-ftps --disable-gopher --disable-http --disable-https --disable-imap --disable-imaps --disable-pop3 --disable-pop3s --disable-rtsp --disable-smb --disable-smbs --disable-tftp --disable-telnet --disable-ftfp --disable-manual --disable-ares --disable-cookies --disable-proxy -disable-versioned-symbols --disable-libcurl-option --without-librtmp --disable-shared --without-ssl --with-darwinssl --without-zlib --disable-ldap --without-libidn
• make

3. Download (or clone) cmail
4. do in terminal:

• cd ~/Downloads
• unzip cmail-master.zip
• cd cmail-master
• c++ -o cmail -std=c++14 -I ~/Downloads/curl-7.61.1/include ~/Downloads/curl-7.61.1/lib/.libs/libcurl.a -framework Security cmail.cpp
• sudo mv cmail /usr/local/bin/

help screen:

bash $ cmail -h
usage: cmail [-dh] [-H header] [-a attachment] [-p password] [-s subject]
             [-u username] to [smtp]

An easy utility based on libcurl to send emails from the command line
Version 1.02, developed by Dmitry Lyssenko ([email protected])

optional arguments:
 -d             turn on debugs (multiple calls increase verbosity)
 -h             help screen
 -H header      append email header
 -a attachment  attach file
 -p password    password to use with username to access smtp server
 -s subject     set email subject
 -u username    username to access smtp server with

standalone arguments:
  to            'to' recipient(s)
  smtp          smtp server to connect to [default: <recover from username>]

if there are attachments or inputs contain unicode, the mail is sent using
mime/base64 encoding, otherwise it is sent as plain text

to send attachments only and suppress inputs, specify a bare qualifier `-',
predicated at least one option -a is given

- Option -H supports headers: `From', `To', `Cc', `Bcc', `Subject'
  headers should be given one per option and in the following format, e.g.:
   -H 'Subject: this is a subject'
- Headers `To', `Cc', `Bcc' are additive (multiple arguments could be given,
  listed over comma), while `From' and `Subject' are overridable (only the last
  given will be recorded)
- Argument `to' also may contain multiple recipients (like additive headers in
  option -H)
- Argument `smtp', if not given, is attempted to be recovered from the username
  (option -u, or header 'From:'): if it's is a fully qualified email, the domain
  part is extracted and prepended with "smtp."
- if header -H 'From: ...' is missed, it is attempted to be recovered from the
  username (option -u)
- setting a username (option -u) requires setting a password (-p) as well
- a password (-p) requires a username; if the username is not given, it is
  attempted to be recovered from `-H "From: ..."' header
- specifying a username/password automatically implies using `smtps://' protocol
  (instead of default `smtp://')
- subject could be passed either via -s or via -H 'Subject: ...'; the latter
  option overrides the former one

bash $ 

CAVEAT:

The obvious caveat using this tool is that it requires passing a password as a parameter (if you work with smpts). Mac os let you working around this limitation by using security utility, which would let you to extracting the password from the Keychain Access vault and passing it to the cmail, e.g.:

bash $ echo "test mail" | cmail -s "email subject" -u user@some_mailer.com -p `security find-internet-password -wa "user@some_mailer.com"` another_user@somewhere_else.com