mutt-py

A Python wrapper script for emailing with the mutt program.

This script will let you easily send a message from your remote server with multiple files attached, avoiding the need to download files to your local machine in order to email them.

Usage

The only required flag is -r to specify a list of email recipients. Other flags can be provided, to fill in the subject line, body message, and reply-to address. Any extra positional arguments are treated as files to be attached.

$ ./mutt.py -s "Merry Christmas!" -r "mom@internets.com, dad@internets.com" -rt "steve@internets.com" -m "Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad! Love, Steve" christmas_card.txt presents.txt

Output:

Email command is:

export EMAIL="steve@internets.com"

mutt -s "Merry Christmas" -a "christmas_card.txt" -a "presents.txt"  -- "mom@internets.com, dad@internets.com" <<E0F
Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad! Love, Steve
E0F

Running command, sending email...

The script will run the mutt command as shown, sending the email with specified attachments and recipients.

This can be combined with the find command to search your system for desired files to be emailed:

$ find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | xargs ./mutt.py -r "kellys04@nyumc.org"
Email command is:

export EMAIL=""

mutt -s "[mutt.py]" -a "./README.md" -a "./christmas_card.txt" -a "./presents.txt" -a "./mutt.py"  -- "kellys04@nyumc.org" <<E0F
~ This message was sent by the mutt.py email script ~
E0F

Running command, sending email...

Notes

Currently, newline characters are not rendered properly when using the -m argument. If your message requires newlines, then consider using the -mf argument to send the contents of a file as the message instead.

$ cat message.txt
This is the email message
I wrote this message
to be sent in the email
- Stephen

$ ./mutt.py -r "kellys04@nyumc.org" -mf message.txt
Email command is:

export EMAIL=""

mutt -s "[mutt.py]"  -- "kellys04@nyumc.org" <<E0F
This is the email message
I wrote this message
to be sent in the email
- Stephen


E0F

Running command, sending email...

If you need to generate the contents of such a message dynamically, consider using a heredoc for message generation as well:

message_file="message2.txt"
foo="fooooo"
bar="baaaar"

cat > "$message_file" <<E02
$foo
$bar
E02

./mutt.py -r "kellys04@nyumc.org" -mf "$message_file"

Email command is:

export EMAIL=""

mutt -s "[mutt.py]"  -- "kellys04@nyumc.org" <<E0F
fooooo
baaaar

E0F

Running command, sending email...

Why mutt-py?

While Python does have a built in email library, mutt is a very robust program that requires less configuration to use and is easily available on most Linux systems. On OS X, you can download it with homebrew with the command brew install mutt.

The main drawback to mutt, and the reason for this script, is that mutt's required syntax is difficult to expand dynamically for variable numbers of file attachments.

Software Requirements

this script was developed & tested with the following:

• Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.4.3
• bash version 4.1.2
• Mutt 1.5.20