How to send email using terminal

In this tutorial we’ll use the terminal to send email using SMTP. This method can be used to test the SMTP credentials by sending a test email.

Before you start

1. You’ll need a UNIX based terminal with openssl installed.
2. SMTP credentials from any service like Gmail, AWS SES, Mailchimp etc. We’ll use Gmail credentials in this example

Encode the SMTP credentials

Base64 encode the SMTP username and password (password will be app password for gmail). Copy the result of each of the commands.

echo -n "<username>" | openssl enc -base64
echo -n "<password>" | openssl enc -base64

Creating the email body

Create a file named mail.txt with the following content.

EHLO example.com
AUTH LOGIN
<base64 username>
<base64 password>
MAIL FROM: your@gmail.com
RCPT TO: receiver@example.com
DATA
From: Sender Name <your@gmail.com>
To: receiver@example.com
Subject: Did it work?

This message was sent using the terminal.
.
QUIT

Replace your@gmail.com with your gmail id and receiver@example.com with the email id you want to send the message.

Sending the email

Run the following command to send the email.

openssl s_client -crlf -quiet -starttls smtp -connect <email server>:<port> < /path/to/mail.txt

Replace your mail server host and port provided to you by the service.

Check your receiver mailbox.

Congratulations!🎉 You’ve successfully sent email from the terminal.