[windows] How to send a simple email from a Windows batch file?

I'm running Windows 2003 Service Pack 2. I have a batch file that runs on demand. I want to have an email sent every time the batch file runs. The email is simple, just a sentence indicating that the batch file ran; it is the same every time.

I've tried a couple of things to get this done. I thought of telnet, but I can't figure out how to redirect a set of commands into telnet; Windows batch files don't have a Unix-style "here document," and calling "telnet <scriptfile" where scriptfile contains the commands to send an email didn't work. I also found a couple of solutions on the internet using CDO.Message, but I've never used that before and I kept getting error messages that I don't understand.

How can I send a simple email from a Windows batch file?

If you can't follow Max's suggestion of installing Blat (or any other utility) on your server, then perhaps your server already has software installed that can send emails.

I know that both Oracle and SqlServer have the capability to send email. You might have to work with your DBA to get that feature enabled and/or get the privilege to use it. Of course I can see how that might present its own set of problems and red tape. Assuming you can access the feature, it is fairly simple to have a batch file login to a database and send mail.

A batch file can easily run a VBScript via CSCRIPT. A quick google search finds many links showing how to send email with VBScript. The first one I happened to look at was http://www.activexperts.com/activmonitor/windowsmanagement/adminscripts/enterprise/mail/. It looks straight forward.

$emailSmtpServerPort = "587"
$emailSmtpUser = "username"
$emailSmtpPass = 'password'
$emailMessage = New-Object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage
$emailMessage.From = "[From email address]"
$emailMessage.To.Add( "[Send to email address]" )
$emailMessage.Subject = "Testing e-mail"
$emailMessage.IsBodyHtml = $true
$emailMessage.Body = @"
<p>Here is a message that is <strong>HTML formatted</strong>.</p>
<p>From your friendly neighborhood IT guy</p>
"@
$SMTPClient = New-Object System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient( $emailSmtpServer , $emailSmtpServerPort )
$SMTPClient.EnableSsl = $true
$SMTPClient.Credentials = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential( $emailSmtpUser , $emailSmtpPass );
$SMTPClient.Send( $emailMessage )

If PowerShell is available, the Send-MailMessage commandlet is a single one-line command that could easily be called from a batch file to handle email notifications. Below is a sample of the line you would include in your batch file to call the PowerShell script (the %xVariable% is a variable you might want to pass from your batch file to the PowerShell script):

--[BATCH FILE]--

:: ...your code here...
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe  -windowstyle hidden -command C:\MyScripts\EmailScript.ps1 %xVariable%

Below is an example of what you might include in your PowerShell script (you must include the PARAM line as the first non-remark line in your script if you included passing the %xVariable% from your batch file:

--[POWERSHELL SCRIPT]--

Param([String]$xVariable)
# ...your code here...
$smtp = "smtp.[emaildomain].com"
$to = "[Send to email address]"
$from = "[From email address]" 
$subject = "[Subject]" 
$body = "[Text you want to include----the <br> is a line feed: <br> <br>]"    
$body += "[This could be a second line of text]" + "<br> "

$attachment="[file name if you would like to include an attachment]"
send-MailMessage -SmtpServer $smtp -To $to -From $from -Subject $subject -Body $body -BodyAsHtml -Attachment $attachment -Priority high  

It works for me, by using double quotes around variables.

I am using batch script to call powershell Send-MailMessage

Batch Script:send_email.bat

C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe  -command 'E:\path\send_email.ps1

Pwershell Script send_email.ps1

Send-MailMessage -From "noreply@$env:computername" -To '<[email protected]>' -Subject 'Blah Blah' -SmtpServer  'smtp.domain.com'  -Attachments 'E:\path\file.log' -BODY "Blah Blah on Host: $env:computername "

I've used Blat ( http://www.blat.net/ ) for many years. It's a simple command line utility that can send email from command line. It's free and opensource.

You can use command like "Blat myfile.txt -to [email protected] -server smtp.domain.com -port 6000"

Here is some other software you can try to send email from command line (I've never used them):
http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/
http://www.petri.co.il/sendmail.htm
http://www.petri.co.il/software/mailsend105.zip
http://retired.beyondlogic.org/solutions/cmdlinemail/cmdlinemail.htm

Here ( http://www.petri.co.il/send_mail_from_script.htm ) you can find other various way of sending email from a VBS script, plus link to some of the mentioned software

The following VBScript code is taken from that page

Set objEmail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
objEmail.From = "[email protected]"
objEmail.To = "[email protected]"
objEmail.Subject = "Server is down!"
objEmail.Textbody = "Server100 is no longer accessible over the network."
objEmail.Send

Save the file as something.vbs

Set Msg = CreateObject("CDO.Message")

With Msg

 .To = "[email protected]"
 .From = "[email protected]"
 .Subject = "Hello"
 .TextBody = "Just wanted to say hi."
 .Send

End With

Save the file as something2.vbs

I think these VBS scripts use the windows default mail server, if present. I've not tested these scripts...