Send emails via command line

Linux mail command.

You can use it to send emails via your GMail account. Since mail is a command line tool you can use it in scripts and it also works with crontab.
You have to install the ssmtp tool once and fill in a configuration file.

sudo apt install ssmtp

sudo nano /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

In /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf you have to enter your e-mail details:

# The place where the mail goes. The actual machine name is required no

# MX records are consulted. Commonly mail hosts are named mail.domain.com

mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587

UseTLS=YES

UseSTARTTLS=YES

AuthUser=youremailaddress@gmail.com

AuthPass=GMail password

Then you must set in your Google account (not in GMail) that you only want to send emails via password protection.
Go to https://myaccount.google.com/u/0/?hl=nl and turn on Less secure app access.

Send me an email:

echo "Hi, this is an email" | mail -s "Test Message" marcel@marcelv.net