RSS FeedsUnix, Xenix and ODT General FAQ
How can I send attachments from the command line?
Using mail from the command line: if you want to send true attachments (that show up in graphical mail clients as attachments), you need something like "mutt" or CleanCode Email.
If it's just arbitrary text or a file you want to send, and don't care about it looking like a real attachment, you can use ordinary "mail" ("mailx" on some Unixes) at the command line. However, that's NOT a mime attachment - it's just your file mixed in to the mail message. However, some mail clients will see it and treat it as a real attachment, so this may be "good enough":
mailx -s "This is it" someone@someplace <
somefile
or
echo "text
more text" | mailx somebody somebodyelse fred@fred.com
You can use uuencode to send a binary file the same way, and some mail clients may even display that as they would a "real" attachment.
However: that's NOT an attachment. Every time somebody asks this question on the newsgroup, someone is sure to insist that it is, but a simple visual examination of actual messages should show them their error. The confusion is, of course, that some mail clients will act as though the uuencoded text were a proper attachment. That's fine if the people you are sending to use one of those clients, but if there is any chance they do not, be safe: use Mutt.
If this page was useful to you, please help others find it:
Inexpensive and informative Apple related e-books:
Booking a Cheap Airline Ticket
Font Problems in Leopard
Recording with GarageBand '08
Take Control of Speeding Up Your Mac
the Mac Command Line with Terminal
Have you tried Searching this site?
Unix/Linux/Mac OS X support by phone, email or on-site: Support Rates
This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more. We appreciate comments and article submissions.
Many of the products and books I review are things I purchased for my own use. Some were given to me specifically for the purpose of reviewing them. I resell or can earn commissions from the sale of some of these items. Links within these pages may be affiliate links that pay me for referring you to them. That's mostly insignificant amounts of money; whenever it is not I have made my relationship plain. I also may own stock in companies mentioned here. If you have any question, please do feel free to contact me.
Specific links that take you to pages that allow you to purchase the item I reviewed are very likely to pay me a commission. Many of the books I review were given to me by the publishers specifically for the purpose of writing a review. These gifts and referral fees do not affect my opinions; I often give bad reviews anyway.
We use Google third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
This post tagged:
Buy Kerio from a dealer
who knows tech:
I sell and support
Kerio Connect Mail server, Control, Workspace and Operator licenses and subscription renewals
Click here to add your comments
email -s "Attachment" -a coolpic.jpg user@domain.com
You can also redirect text:
email -s "Attachement" -a coolpic.jpg user@domain.com < somefile
You can send an empty email with just the attachment:
email -s "Attachment" -a coolpic.jpg -b user@domain.com
Email can also send to SMTP servers that expect authentication (SMTP AUTH) and has neat features such as an address book and dynamic signature files. Email ALSO works well with GPG/PGP for encryption.
--
Thanks: See http://aplawrence.com/Reviews/cleancodeemail.html
--TonyLawrence
---December 30, 2004
I use "mpack", which I just found in debian repository.
e.g.:
mpack -s "My Subject" /tmp/myfile user@domain.com
Edward van Kuik
---
---December 30, 2004
Mon Apr 16 19:36:06 2007: 2958 weiss1rogerscom
I have been using MUTT to send email with pdf or htm attachments from the command line. Works well as long as you have a proper .mime file setup.
Cheers
Mon May 19 20:46:07 2008: 4218 anonymous
I just found nail which is a command line replacement for mail and supports attachments.
Mon Nov 17 23:13:51 2008: 4782 fractil
I use the following to send files as attachments using the mail command:
uuencode <~/path/filename> <rename file> | mail -s "subject" <recipient>
For example:
uuencode /etc/apache2/apache2.config apache.config | mail -s "Apache Config" jon@doe.com
Mon Nov 17 23:55:15 2008: 4783 TonyLawrence
No, that's NOT an attachment. It's just a uuencoded file embedded in your message.
Read the text.
Fri Nov 21 10:06:47 2008: 4791 anonymous
thanks edwards.. mpack worked for me..
Fri Jul 17 11:45:02 2009: 6640 anonymous
mutt -s "test mail" -a /tmp/a.txt abc@xyz.com
Sun Mar 28 14:32:03 2010: 8289 Joseph
http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/
Here's a good solution: SendEmail
An Email Program for Sending SMTP Mail from a Command Line
It's a single perl script, and it doesn't make any [bad] assumptions such as sendmail running and configured properly. It supports attachments.
http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/
Sat May 22 20:33:28 2010: 8628 1base
http://1base.com
Using nail (mailx) version 12.4 I can no longer
send receipients name with his mail account.
nail breaks the argument like
nail -r sender_name_and_mail-account -s "xxxx aaaa sss" to-addr <text_in_file
where to-addr = "name1 name2 mail-account"
into mail to 3 mail accounts, where two will fail since they do not represent
real mail-account.
It also means the the receiver may believe, that I as a sender dot not know his name.
It works fine on nail version 12.2 but not on 12.4.
Weird
Ejler
Tue Dec 14 19:20:58 2010: 9165 anonymous
sudo mutt -s "test" -a /tmp/foo.txt -- user@domain.com
Tue Dec 14 19:31:49 2010: 9166 TonyLawrence
Yes, I did forget to include an example of usage, but why on earth would you use sudo???
Tue Dec 14 20:04:57 2010: 9167 anonymous
Indeed no need to use sudo !
Tue Feb 1 15:19:13 2011: 9267 anonymous
Mailx on RHEL 6 has an option similar to MUTT for adding attachments to outgoing emails.
e.g. echo hello | mailx -s 'testing 1 2 3' -a vg1.tar.gz fred@nowhere
Don't miss responses! Subscribe to Comments by RSS or by Email
Click here to add your comments
If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a Gravatar