If you need to automate tasks then you'll likely find this post useful. I like to be notified if an automated script fails or succeeds, depending on the situation.
You can get your scripts to email you using Google's SMTP server:
1. Set up a Gmail Password
Assuming you have a Google account and are signed in, visit https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords.
Select "Other" from the Select app drop down:
Give the app password a name. It can be whatever. Click "Generate" and you'll see something like this:
Save this somewhere else it shall be lost to the void.
When you click done your new app password will show up for you:
2. Install mutt
If you're on Linux your distro will likely have the mutt package available in its repositories:
Fedora/RHEL/CentOS
sudo dnf install mutt
or
sudo yum install mutt
Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install mutt
Arch/Manjaro
sudo pacman -S mutt
Bonus: mutt is also available on MacOS via Homebrew:
brew install mutt
3. Configure mutt
Create a .muttrc file in your home directory.
vi ~/.muttrc
Fill it out with the configs, pasting in your app password from step 1 for the smtp_pass value:
set from = "<gmail-id>@gmail.com"
set realname = "<Your Name>"
set smtp_url = "smtp://<gmail-id>@smtp.gmail.com:587/"
set smtp_pass = "<smtp password generated in the google link above>"
In our case "smtp password generated in the google link above" is vaykiyyakisiqmez.
Now test it out -
echo "This is an email body." | mutt -s "This is an email subject" recipient@example.com
Tada! 🎉
Top comments (2)
Extremely helpful thanks. Might be worth adding that a GMail account needs 2-factor to enable app passwords. The error page for the new account I set up just said "feature unavailable" with no explanation, so I spent hours getting sucked into Google workspace nonsense before I came back to this solution.
It's really very helpful. I've watched tons of videos on youtube, but couldn't find a solution. I've created my account on this platform just now, so just I can comment here.