lhagan / pysmtp

An easy way to send email from the command line on Mac OS X

pysmtp

An easy way to send email from the command line on Mac OS X

pysmtp lets you send email from the command line (or another script) with minimal hassle. It uses the Mac OS X keychain to retrieve your password (no more storing passwords in plain text!). You can even send attachments. pysmtp has no dependencies (other than Python and keychain.py, which is included), so there's nothing to compile, install, or configure.

Setup

To get started, you'll need a keychain item that corresponds to the SMTP server you want to use. Open Keychain Access (in /Applications/Utilities) and go to File > New Password Item... Set "Keychain Item Name", to your SMTP server; for example "smtp.gmail.com". In the "Account Name" box, enter your email address, such as "[email protected]". Finally, enter your password and save the item.

Usage

Usage is simple -- there's only one required argument (although you'll probably need more to do anything useful). The following will send an email to [email protected] from [email protected]:

python pysmtp.py [email protected]

Add a 2nd email address to send to someone other than yourself, and use options to set the subject, message, file attachment, etc. For a complete list of options, run:

python pysmtp.py --help

Note that as pysmtp depends on Mac OS X's keychain, it won't work on any other platform. I'm sure someone else can solve this and I'd be happy to merge in any such enhancements.

License

Copyright 2010 Luke D Hagan

Do whatever you want. Feel free to copy, modify, redistribute, remix, etc. in whatever way you see fit.

Disclaimer

This software is provided 'AS IS' -- use at your own risk. It works fine for me, but I'm not to be held responsible for any damage, data loss, security breaches, public embarrassment, etc. that may result from your use of this software.