Mail with Attachments (Unix shellscript)

Updated: Apr 22, 2023

Lot of us already know howto send attachments in mails using shellscript. Lot of us already wrote these kind of script. Here is one more script to do the same thing. I already added all the details in the script itself. It is self explainable. If somebody wants, take it.

#!/bin/sh
# generatemail.sh - script to send mail with multiple attachments.
# Wrote By: me! mohan43u.
# Date: Thu Mar 06 11:56:12 IST 2009
# License: Its in public domain. Use it whatever way you can.

USAGE="USAGE:

     generatemail.sh [-t tolist] [-s subject] [-e encodetype]
             [-h] ATTACH_FILE1 ATTACH_FILE2 ...
"
HELP="${USAGE}
OPTIONS:
     -t tolist       comma seperated e-mail addresses
                             (Default: current userid).

     -s subject      Subject line (Default: 'test mail from generatemail.sh
                              script')

     -e encodetype   Encoding type (x-uuencode/base64). only GNU uuencode
                     can encode in base64. If you are using this script
                     in Old school unixes(solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc) use
                     only 'x-uuencode'. Linux can handle both types
                     (Default: x-uuencode).

     -h              Print this Help text

This script will read standard input as a mail body and takes filenames as
arguments to generate a preformatted mail content in satndard output. you can
simply pipe the output to any MTA (sendmail, postfix etc.,) to send a mail
with attachments.

Eg:
     $ generatemail.sh -t foo@bar.com -s 'mail with attachments' file1 \
             file2 | /usr/sbin/sendmail -v -i -t
     hi foo,
             I attached file1 and file2 with this mail. Take a look at it.

     Thanks,
     ben.
     [CTRL-D]
     $

     This above command line will attach file1 and file2 and send a mail
     to foo@bar.com. The files file1 and file2 will be encoded in
     'x-uuencode' and attached with this mail.
"

TO="${USER}"
SUBJECT="testmail from generatemail.sh script"
BOUNDARY="`date +'%G%m%d%H%M%S'`"
ENCODE_TYPE="x-uuencode"

while getopts 't:s:e:h' OPTIONS
do
     case "${OPTIONS}" in
     t) TO="${OPTARG}";;
     s) SUBJECT="${OPTARG}";;
     e) ENCODE_TYPE="${OPTARG}";;
     h) echo "${HELP}" && exit 0;;
     \?) echo "${USAGE}" && exit 1;;
     esac
done

SHIFT_COUNT=`expr "${OPTIND}" - 1`
shift "${SHIFT_COUNT}"

header()
{
     echo "To: ${TO}"
     echo "Subject: ${SUBJECT}"
     echo "Mime-Version: 1.0"
     echo "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"${BOUNDARY}\""
     echo "Content-Disposition: inline"
     echo "User-Agent: generatemail.sh 0.1"
}
create_octet_part()
{
     BASENAME=`basename "${1}"`
     FILE="${1}"

     if test "${ENCODE_TYPE}" = "base64"
     then
             ENCODED_MESSAGE=`uuencode -m "${FILE}" "${BASENAME}" \
             | egrep -v '^begin|^='`
     else
             ENCODED_MESSAGE=`uuencode "${FILE}" "${BASENAME}"`
     fi

     echo "Content-Type: application/octet-stream"
     echo "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"${BASENAME}\""
     echo "Content-Transfer-Encoding: ${ENCODE_TYPE}"
     echo
     echo "${ENCODED_MESSAGE}"
     echo
}
create_text_part()
{
     echo "Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8"
     echo "Content-Disposition: inline"
}

# Main

BODY="`cat`"
header
echo
echo "--${BOUNDARY}"
create_text_part
echo
echo "${BODY}"
echo
for FILENAME
do
     echo "--${BOUNDARY}"
     create_octet_part "${FILENAME}"
done
echo "--${BOUNDARY}--"

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