How to Send Email from The Command Line

Send mail via CMD console

Scenario:
Your domain: mydomain.com
Domain you wish to send to: theirdomain.com

1. Determine the mail server you're sending to.
Open a CMD prompt
Type

NSLOOKUP 
 set q=mx 
 theirdomain.com

Response:

Non-authoritative answer: 
theirdomain.com MX preference = 50, mail exchanger = mail.theirdomain.com 
Nslookup_big

EDIT
Be sure to type exit to terminate NSLOOKUP.

2. Connect to their mail server

SMTP communicates over port 25. We will now try to use TELNET to connect to their mail server "mail.theirdomain.com"

Open a CMD prompt

TELNET MAIL.THEIRDOMAIN.COM 25

You should see something like this as a response:

220 mx.google.com ESMTP 6si6253627yxg.6

Be aware that different servers will come up with different greetings but you should get SOMETHING. If nothing comes up at this point there are 2 possible problems. Port 25 is being blocked at your firewall, or their server is not responding. Try a different domain, if that works then it's not you.

3. Send an Email

Now, use simple SMTP commands to send a test email. This is very important, you CANNOT use the backspace key, it will work onscreen but not be interpreted correctly. You have to type these commands perfectly.

ehlo mydomain.com 
mail from:<martin9700@mydomain.com> 
rcpt to:<recipient@theirdomain.com> 
data 
This is a test, please do not respond
. 
quit

So, what does that all mean?
EHLO - introduce yourself to the mail server HELO can also be used but EHLO tells the server to use the extended command set (not that we're using that).

MAIL FROM - who's sending the email. Make sure to place this is the greater than/less than brackets as many email servers will require this (Postini).

RCPT TO - who you're sending it to. Again you need to use the brackets. See Step #4 on how to test relaying mail!

DATA - tells the SMTP server that what follows is the body of your email. Make sure to hit "Enter" at the end.

. - the period alone on the line tells the SMTP server you're all done with the data portion and it's clear to send the email.

quit - exits the TELNET session.

4. Test SMTP relay
Testing SMTP relay is very easy, and simply requires a small change to the above commands. See below:

ehlo mydomain.com 
mail from:<martin9700@mydomain.com> 
rcpt to:<recipient@someotherdomain.com> 
data 
This is a test, please do not respond 
. 
quit

See the difference? On the RCPT TO line, we're sending to a domain that is not controlled by the SMTP server we're sending to. You will get an immediate error is SMTP relay is turned off. If you're able to continue and send an email, then relay is allowed by that server.

send mail from linux terminal in one line

mail can represent quite a couple of programs on a linux system. What you want behind it is either sendmail or postfix. I recommend the latter.

You can install it via your favorite package manager. Then you have to configure it, and once you have done that, you can send email like this:

 echo "My message" | mail -s subject user@gmail.com

See the manual for more information.

As far as configuring postfix goes, there's plenty of articles on the internet on how to do it.
Unless you're on a public server with a registered domain, you generally want to forward the email to a SMTP server that you can send email from.

For gmail, for example, follow
http://rtcamp.com/tutorials/linux/ubuntu-postfix-gmail-smtp/
or any other similar tutorial.

Sending email from Command-line via outlook without having to click send

Option 1

You didn't say much about your environment, but assuming you have it available you could use a PowerShell script; one example is here. The essence of this is:

$smtp = New-Object Net.Mail.SmtpClient("ho-ex2010-caht1.exchangeserverpro.net")
$smtp.Send("reports@exchangeserverpro.net","administrator@exchangeserverpro.net","Test Email","This is a test")

You could then launch the script from the command line as per this example:

powershell.exe -noexit c:\scripts\test.ps1

Note that PowerShell 2.0, which is installed by default on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008R2, includes a simpler Send-MailMessage command, making things easier.

Option 2

If you're prepared to use third-party software, an option is something like this SendEmail command-line tool. It depends on your target environment, though; if you're deploying your batch file to multiple machines, that will obviously require inclusion (but not formal installation) each time.

Option 3

You could drive Outlook directly from a VBA script, which in turn you would trigger from a batch file; this would let you send an email using Outlook itself, which looks to be closest to what you're wanting. There are two parts to this; first, figure out the VBA scripting required to send an email. There are lots of examples for this online, including from Microsoft here. Essence of this is:

Sub SendMessage(DisplayMsg As Boolean, Optional AttachmentPath)
    Dim objOutlook As Outlook.Application
    Dim objOutlookMsg As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim objOutlookRecip As Outlook.Recipient
    Dim objOutlookAttach As Outlook.Attachment
    
    Set objOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
    Set objOutlookMsg  = objOutlook.CreateItem(olMailItem)
    
    With objOutlookMsg
        Set objOutlookRecip = .Recipients.Add("Nancy Davolio")
        objOutlookRecip.Type = olTo
        ' Set the Subject, Body, and Importance of the message.
        .Subject = "This is an Automation test with Microsoft Outlook"
        .Body = "This is the body of the message." &vbCrLf & vbCrLf
        .Importance = olImportanceHigh  'High importance
        
        If Not IsMissing(AttachmentPath) Then
            Set objOutlookAttach = .Attachments.Add(AttachmentPath)
        End If
        
        For Each ObjOutlookRecip In .Recipients
            objOutlookRecip.Resolve
        Next
        
        .Save
        .Send
    End With
    Set objOutlook = Nothing
End Sub

Then, launch Outlook from the command line with the /autorun parameter, as per this answer (alter path/macroname as necessary):

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe" /autorun macroname

Option 4

You could use the same approach as option 3, but move the Outlook VBA into a PowerShell script (which you would run from a command line). Example here. This is probably the tidiest solution, IMO.

How to send a simple email from a Windows batch file?

Max is on he right track with the suggestion to use Windows Scripting for a way to do it without installing any additional executables on the machine. His code will work if you have the IIS SMTP service setup to forward outbound email using the "smart host" setting, or the machine also happens to be running Microsoft Exchange. Otherwise if this is not configured, you will find your emails just piling up in the message queue folder (\inetpub\mailroot\queue). So, unless you can configure this service, you also want to be able to specify the email server you want to use to send the message with. To do that, you can do something like this in your windows script file:

Set objMail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
Set objConf = CreateObject("CDO.Configuration")
Set objFlds = objConf.Fields
objFlds.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2 'cdoSendUsingPort
objFlds.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "smtp.your-site-url.com" 'your smtp server domain or IP address goes here
objFlds.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25 'default port for email
'uncomment next three lines if you need to use SMTP Authorization
'objFlds.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername") = "your-username"
'objFlds.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword") = "your-password"
'objFlds.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate") = 1 'cdoBasic
objFlds.Update
objMail.Configuration = objConf
objMail.FromName = "Your Name"
objMail.From = "your@address.com"
objMail.To = "destination@address.com"
objMail.Subject = "Email Subject Text"
objMail.TextBody = "The message of the email..."
objMail.Send
Set objFlds = Nothing
Set objConf = Nothing
Set objMail = Nothing

How do I Send Email from the Command Line?

You can use mail:

$mail -s <subject> <recipients>

You then type your message and end it with a line that has only a period. This signals you are done and sends the message.

You can also pipe your email in from STDIN and it will be sent as the text of an email:

$<mail-generating-program> | mail -s <subject> <recipients>

One small note with this approach - unless your computer is connected to the internet and your DNS settings are set properly, you won't be able to receive replies to your message. For a more robust command-line program you can link to your POP or IMAP email account, check out either pine or mutt.