md-mailer

A simple tool to send markdown emails from the command line.

Installation

npm install -g md-mailer

Usage

md-mailer allows one to write emails in markdown, it supports embedded images and attachments.

To use it, first prepare your email:

---
from: John Appleseed <[email protected]>
to:   Jack Bananapeel <[email protected]>, Sue Orangeskin <[email protected]>
cc:   John Appleseed <[email protected]>
subject: An example email!
---

This is an example email! **Bold** text etc, it all works!

![an inline image](./image.jpg)

greets,
John

![an attached pdf](./document.pdf)

Just embed all the sending information in the frontmatter preamble of the email file.

To send the email, invoke md-mailer:

md-mailer -u <user> -h <host> -p <pass> --ssl file.md

Markdown interpolation

Sometimes, you need to be able to insert variable text into your email. To allow this, md-mailer extends markdown with a little of custom syntax:

Hi my name is ${NAME},

Thanks,
$NAME

will replace the ${NAME} and $NAME variables with their value (found in the environment). This also works for the frontmatter of your email:

---
to: $RECIPIENTS
from: $ME
subject: ${SUBJECT}
---
email...

Options

These can be passed as command line arguments, or as environment variables.

-h, --host, $MDMAILER_HOST, option.host

The hostname of the mail server to use. (Example: smtp.gmail.com).

-P, --port, $MDMAILER_PORT, options.port

The port of the mail server.

-u, --user, $MDMAILER_USER, options.user

The username of the account that should be used at the mail provider.

-p, --pass, $MDMAILER_PASS, options.pass

The password of the account that should be used at the mail provider.

Note: using the command line arguments like this might be unsafe, because the password will be stored cleatext in your shell history. Prefer setting the environment variable $MDMAILER_PASS.

--ssl, options.ssl

If present, md-mailer uses SSL.

-d, --dry-run

If present, md-mailer will not actually send any emails.

-?. --help

Show the help text.

Header options

These options can be set from the email message header.

from

The sender of the message. Can be of the form Name <email@host> or email@host.

to

A list of recipients to which the message will be sent. You can enter a comma-separated list of emails (in the formats described in from) or use yamls list syntax:

to:
- Sue Orangeskin <[email protected]> 
- [email protected]

is equivalent to

to: Sue Orangesking <[email protected]>, [email protected]

cc, bcc

The list of carbon copy and blind carbon copy recipients, the format used in to is also valid here.

subject

The subject of the message.

Node API

You can also use the api from node:

import mdmailer from 'md-mailer'
mdmailer({
  user: 'example'
, pass: '12345'
, host: 'smtp.gmail.com'
, ssl: true
, files: ['email1.md', 'email2.md' ]
});