1GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1) Git Manual GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1)
2
6 git-send-email - Send a collection of patches as emails
7
9 git send-email [<options>] <file|directory>...
10 git send-email [<options>] <format-patch options>
11 git send-email --dump-aliases
12
14 Takes the patches given on the command line and emails them out.
15 Patches can be specified as files, directories (which will send all
16 files in the directory), or directly as a revision list. In the last
17 case, any format accepted by git-format-patch(1) can be passed to git
18 send-email, as well as options understood by git-format-patch(1).
19 The header of the email is configurable via command-line options. If
21 not specified on the command line, the user will be prompted with a
22 ReadLine enabled interface to provide the necessary information.
23 There are two formats accepted for patch files:
25 1. mbox format files
27 This is what git-format-patch(1) generates. Most headers and MIME
29 formatting are ignored.
30 2. The original format used by Greg Kroah-Hartman’s
32 send_lots_of_email.pl script
33 This format expects the first line of the file to contain the "Cc:"
35 value and the "Subject:" of the message as the second line.
36
38 Composing
39 --annotate
40 Review and edit each patch you’re about to send. Default is the
41 value of sendemail.annotate. See the CONFIGURATION section for
42 sendemail.multiEdit.
43 --bcc=<address>,...
45 Specify a "Bcc:" value for each email. Default is the value of
46 sendemail.bcc.
47 This option may be specified multiple times.
49 --cc=<address>,...
51 Specify a starting "Cc:" value for each email. Default is the value
52 of sendemail.cc.
53 This option may be specified multiple times.
55 --compose
57 Invoke a text editor (see GIT_EDITOR in git-var(1)) to edit an
58 introductory message for the patch series.
59 When --compose is used, git send-email will use the From, Subject,
61 and In-Reply-To headers specified in the message. If the body of
62 the message (what you type after the headers and a blank line) only
63 contains blank (or Git: prefixed) lines, the summary won’t be sent,
64 but From, Subject, and In-Reply-To headers will be used unless they
65 are removed.
66 Missing From or In-Reply-To headers will be prompted for.
68 See the CONFIGURATION section for sendemail.multiEdit.
70 --from=<address>
72 Specify the sender of the emails. If not specified on the command
73 line, the value of the sendemail.from configuration option is used.
74 If neither the command-line option nor sendemail.from are set, then
75 the user will be prompted for the value. The default for the prompt
76 will be the value of GIT_AUTHOR_IDENT, or GIT_COMMITTER_IDENT if
77 that is not set, as returned by "git var -l".
78 --reply-to=<address>
80 Specify the address where replies from recipients should go to. Use
81 this if replies to messages should go to another address than what
82 is specified with the --from parameter.
83 --in-reply-to=<identifier>
85 Make the first mail (or all the mails with --no-thread) appear as a
86 reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking threads to
87 provide a new patch series. The second and subsequent emails will
88 be sent as replies according to the --[no-]chain-reply-to setting.
89 So for example when --thread and --no-chain-reply-to are specified,
91 the second and subsequent patches will be replies to the first one
92 like in the illustration below where [PATCH v2 0/3] is in reply to
93 [PATCH 0/2]:
94 [PATCH 0/2] Here is what I did...
96 [PATCH 1/2] Clean up and tests
97 [PATCH 2/2] Implementation
98 [PATCH v2 0/3] Here is a reroll
99 [PATCH v2 1/3] Clean up
100 [PATCH v2 2/3] New tests
101 [PATCH v2 3/3] Implementation
102 Only necessary if --compose is also set. If --compose is not set,
104 this will be prompted for.
105 --subject=<string>
107 Specify the initial subject of the email thread. Only necessary if
108 --compose is also set. If --compose is not set, this will be
109 prompted for.
110 --to=<address>,...
112 Specify the primary recipient of the emails generated. Generally,
113 this will be the upstream maintainer of the project involved.
114 Default is the value of the sendemail.to configuration value; if
115 that is unspecified, and --to-cmd is not specified, this will be
116 prompted for.
117 This option may be specified multiple times.
119 --8bit-encoding=<encoding>
121 When encountering a non-ASCII message or subject that does not
122 declare its encoding, add headers/quoting to indicate it is encoded
123 in <encoding>. Default is the value of the
124 sendemail.assume8bitEncoding; if that is unspecified, this will be
125 prompted for if any non-ASCII files are encountered.
126 Note that no attempts whatsoever are made to validate the encoding.
128 --compose-encoding=<encoding>
130 Specify encoding of compose message. Default is the value of the
131 sendemail.composeencoding; if that is unspecified, UTF-8 is
132 assumed.
133 --transfer-encoding=(7bit|8bit|quoted-printable|base64|auto)
135 Specify the transfer encoding to be used to send the message over
136 SMTP. 7bit will fail upon encountering a non-ASCII message.
137 quoted-printable can be useful when the repository contains files
138 that contain carriage returns, but makes the raw patch email file
139 (as saved from a MUA) much harder to inspect manually. base64 is
140 even more fool proof, but also even more opaque. auto will use 8bit
141 when possible, and quoted-printable otherwise.
142 Default is the value of the sendemail.transferEncoding
144 configuration value; if that is unspecified, default to auto.
145 --xmailer, --no-xmailer
147 Add (or prevent adding) the "X-Mailer:" header. By default, the
148 header is added, but it can be turned off by setting the
149 sendemail.xmailer configuration variable to false.
150 Sending
152 --envelope-sender=<address>
153 Specify the envelope sender used to send the emails. This is useful
154 if your default address is not the address that is subscribed to a
155 list. In order to use the From address, set the value to "auto". If
156 you use the sendmail binary, you must have suitable privileges for
157 the -f parameter. Default is the value of the
158 sendemail.envelopeSender configuration variable; if that is
159 unspecified, choosing the envelope sender is left to your MTA.
160 --sendmail-cmd=<command>
162 Specify a command to run to send the email. The command should be
163 sendmail-like; specifically, it must support the -i option. The
164 command will be executed in the shell if necessary. Default is the
165 value of sendemail.sendmailcmd. If unspecified, and if
166 --smtp-server is also unspecified, git-send-email will search for
167 sendmail in /usr/sbin, /usr/lib and $PATH.
168 --smtp-encryption=<encryption>
170 Specify the encryption to use, either ssl or tls. Any other value
171 reverts to plain SMTP. Default is the value of
172 sendemail.smtpEncryption.
173 --smtp-domain=<FQDN>
175 Specifies the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) used in the
176 HELO/EHLO command to the SMTP server. Some servers require the FQDN
177 to match your IP address. If not set, git send-email attempts to
178 determine your FQDN automatically. Default is the value of
179 sendemail.smtpDomain.
180 --smtp-auth=<mechanisms>
182 Whitespace-separated list of allowed SMTP-AUTH mechanisms. This
183 setting forces using only the listed mechanisms. Example:
184 $ git send-email --smtp-auth="PLAIN LOGIN GSSAPI" ...
186 If at least one of the specified mechanisms matches the ones
188 advertised by the SMTP server and if it is supported by the
189 utilized SASL library, the mechanism is used for authentication. If
190 neither sendemail.smtpAuth nor --smtp-auth is specified, all
191 mechanisms supported by the SASL library can be used. The special
192 value none maybe specified to completely disable authentication
193 independently of --smtp-user
194 --smtp-pass[=<password>]
196 Password for SMTP-AUTH. The argument is optional: If no argument is
197 specified, then the empty string is used as the password. Default
198 is the value of sendemail.smtpPass, however --smtp-pass always
199 overrides this value.
200 Furthermore, passwords need not be specified in configuration files
202 or on the command line. If a username has been specified (with
203 --smtp-user or a sendemail.smtpUser), but no password has been
204 specified (with --smtp-pass or sendemail.smtpPass), then a password
205 is obtained using git-credential.
206 --no-smtp-auth
208 Disable SMTP authentication. Short hand for --smtp-auth=none
209 --smtp-server=<host>
211 If set, specifies the outgoing SMTP server to use (e.g.
212 smtp.example.com or a raw IP address). If unspecified, and if
213 --sendmail-cmd is also unspecified, the default is to search for
214 sendmail in /usr/sbin, /usr/lib and $PATH if such a program is
215 available, falling back to localhost otherwise.
216 For backward compatibility, this option can also specify a full
218 pathname of a sendmail-like program instead; the program must
219 support the -i option. This method does not support passing
220 arguments or using plain command names. For those use cases,
221 consider using --sendmail-cmd instead.
222 --smtp-server-port=<port>
224 Specifies a port different from the default port (SMTP servers
225 typically listen to smtp port 25, but may also listen to submission
226 port 587, or the common SSL smtp port 465); symbolic port names
227 (e.g. "submission" instead of 587) are also accepted. The port can
228 also be set with the sendemail.smtpServerPort configuration
229 variable.
230 --smtp-server-option=<option>
232 If set, specifies the outgoing SMTP server option to use. Default
233 value can be specified by the sendemail.smtpServerOption
234 configuration option.
235 The --smtp-server-option option must be repeated for each option
237 you want to pass to the server. Likewise, different lines in the
238 configuration files must be used for each option.
239 --smtp-ssl
241 Legacy alias for --smtp-encryption ssl.
242 --smtp-ssl-cert-path
244 Path to a store of trusted CA certificates for SMTP SSL/TLS
245 certificate validation (either a directory that has been processed
246 by c_rehash, or a single file containing one or more PEM format
247 certificates concatenated together: see verify(1) -CAfile and
248 -CApath for more information on these). Set it to an empty string
249 to disable certificate verification. Defaults to the value of the
250 sendemail.smtpsslcertpath configuration variable, if set, or the
251 backing SSL library’s compiled-in default otherwise (which should
252 be the best choice on most platforms).
253 --smtp-user=<user>
255 Username for SMTP-AUTH. Default is the value of sendemail.smtpUser;
256 if a username is not specified (with --smtp-user or
257 sendemail.smtpUser), then authentication is not attempted.
258 --smtp-debug=0|1
260 Enable (1) or disable (0) debug output. If enabled, SMTP commands
261 and replies will be printed. Useful to debug TLS connection and
262 authentication problems.
263 --batch-size=<num>
265 Some email servers (e.g. smtp.163.com) limit the number emails to
266 be sent per session (connection) and this will lead to a failure
267 when sending many messages. With this option, send-email will
268 disconnect after sending $<num> messages and wait for a few seconds
269 (see --relogin-delay) and reconnect, to work around such a limit.
270 You may want to use some form of credential helper to avoid having
271 to retype your password every time this happens. Defaults to the
272 sendemail.smtpBatchSize configuration variable.
273 --relogin-delay=<int>
275 Waiting $<int> seconds before reconnecting to SMTP server. Used
276 together with --batch-size option. Defaults to the
277 sendemail.smtpReloginDelay configuration variable.
278 Automating
280 --no-[to|cc|bcc]
281 Clears any list of "To:", "Cc:", "Bcc:" addresses previously set
282 via config.
283 --no-identity
285 Clears the previously read value of sendemail.identity set via
286 config, if any.
287 --to-cmd=<command>
289 Specify a command to execute once per patch file which should
290 generate patch file specific "To:" entries. Output of this command
291 must be single email address per line. Default is the value of
292 sendemail.tocmd configuration value.
293 --cc-cmd=<command>
295 Specify a command to execute once per patch file which should
296 generate patch file specific "Cc:" entries. Output of this command
297 must be single email address per line. Default is the value of
298 sendemail.ccCmd configuration value.
299 --[no-]chain-reply-to
301 If this is set, each email will be sent as a reply to the previous
302 email sent. If disabled with "--no-chain-reply-to", all emails
303 after the first will be sent as replies to the first email sent.
304 When using this, it is recommended that the first file given be an
305 overview of the entire patch series. Disabled by default, but the
306 sendemail.chainReplyTo configuration variable can be used to enable
307 it.
308 --identity=<identity>
310 A configuration identity. When given, causes values in the
311 sendemail.<identity> subsection to take precedence over values in
312 the sendemail section. The default identity is the value of
313 sendemail.identity.
314 --[no-]signed-off-by-cc
316 If this is set, add emails found in the Signed-off-by trailer or
317 Cc: lines to the cc list. Default is the value of
318 sendemail.signedoffbycc configuration value; if that is
319 unspecified, default to --signed-off-by-cc.
320 --[no-]cc-cover
322 If this is set, emails found in Cc: headers in the first patch of
323 the series (typically the cover letter) are added to the cc list
324 for each email set. Default is the value of sendemail.cccover
325 configuration value; if that is unspecified, default to
326 --no-cc-cover.
327 --[no-]to-cover
329 If this is set, emails found in To: headers in the first patch of
330 the series (typically the cover letter) are added to the to list
331 for each email set. Default is the value of sendemail.tocover
332 configuration value; if that is unspecified, default to
333 --no-to-cover.
334 --suppress-cc=<category>
336 Specify an additional category of recipients to suppress the
337 auto-cc of:
338 • author will avoid including the patch author.
340 • self will avoid including the sender.
342 • cc will avoid including anyone mentioned in Cc lines in the
344 patch header except for self (use self for that).
345 • bodycc will avoid including anyone mentioned in Cc lines in the
347 patch body (commit message) except for self (use self for
348 that).
349 • sob will avoid including anyone mentioned in the Signed-off-by
351 trailers except for self (use self for that).
352 • misc-by will avoid including anyone mentioned in Acked-by,
354 Reviewed-by, Tested-by and other "-by" lines in the patch body,
355 except Signed-off-by (use sob for that).
356 • cccmd will avoid running the --cc-cmd.
358 • body is equivalent to sob + bodycc + misc-by.
360 • all will suppress all auto cc values.
362 Default is the value of sendemail.suppresscc configuration value;
364 if that is unspecified, default to self if --suppress-from is
365 specified, as well as body if --no-signed-off-cc is specified.
366 --[no-]suppress-from
368 If this is set, do not add the From: address to the cc: list.
369 Default is the value of sendemail.suppressFrom configuration value;
370 if that is unspecified, default to --no-suppress-from.
371 --[no-]thread
373 If this is set, the In-Reply-To and References headers will be
374 added to each email sent. Whether each mail refers to the previous
375 email (deep threading per git format-patch wording) or to the first
376 email (shallow threading) is governed by "--[no-]chain-reply-to".
377 If disabled with "--no-thread", those headers will not be added
379 (unless specified with --in-reply-to). Default is the value of the
380 sendemail.thread configuration value; if that is unspecified,
381 default to --thread.
382 It is up to the user to ensure that no In-Reply-To header already
384 exists when git send-email is asked to add it (especially note that
385 git format-patch can be configured to do the threading itself).
386 Failure to do so may not produce the expected result in the
387 recipient’s MUA.
388 Administering
390 --confirm=<mode>
391 Confirm just before sending:
392 • always will always confirm before sending
394 • never will never confirm before sending
396 • cc will confirm before sending when send-email has
398 automatically added addresses from the patch to the Cc list
399 • compose will confirm before sending the first message when
401 using --compose.
402 • auto is equivalent to cc + compose
404 Default is the value of sendemail.confirm configuration value; if
406 that is unspecified, default to auto unless any of the suppress
407 options have been specified, in which case default to compose.
408 --dry-run
410 Do everything except actually send the emails.
411 --[no-]format-patch
413 When an argument may be understood either as a reference or as a
414 file name, choose to understand it as a format-patch argument
415 (--format-patch) or as a file name (--no-format-patch). By default,
416 when such a conflict occurs, git send-email will fail.
417 --quiet
419 Make git-send-email less verbose. One line per email should be all
420 that is output.
421 --[no-]validate
423 Perform sanity checks on patches. Currently, validation means the
424 following:
425 • Invoke the sendemail-validate hook if present (see
427 githooks(5)).
428 • Warn of patches that contain lines longer than 998 characters
430 unless a suitable transfer encoding (auto, base64, or
431 quoted-printable) is used; this is due to SMTP limits as
432 described by http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt.
433 Default is the value of sendemail.validate; if this is not set,
435 default to --validate.
436 --force
438 Send emails even if safety checks would prevent it.
439 Information
441 --dump-aliases
442 Instead of the normal operation, dump the shorthand alias names
443 from the configured alias file(s), one per line in alphabetical
444 order. Note, this only includes the alias name and not its expanded
445 email addresses. See sendemail.aliasesfile for more information
446 about aliases.
447
449 sendemail.aliasesFile
450 To avoid typing long email addresses, point this to one or more
451 email aliases files. You must also supply sendemail.aliasFileType.
452 sendemail.aliasFileType
454 Format of the file(s) specified in sendemail.aliasesFile. Must be
455 one of mutt, mailrc, pine, elm, or gnus, or sendmail.
456 What an alias file in each format looks like can be found in the
458 documentation of the email program of the same name. The
459 differences and limitations from the standard formats are described
460 below:
461 sendmail
463 • Quoted aliases and quoted addresses are not supported:
465 lines that contain a " symbol are ignored.
466 • Redirection to a file (/path/name) or pipe (|command) is
468 not supported.
469 • File inclusion (:include: /path/name) is not supported.
471 • Warnings are printed on the standard error output for any
473 explicitly unsupported constructs, and any other lines that
474 are not recognized by the parser.
475 sendemail.multiEdit
477 If true (default), a single editor instance will be spawned to edit
478 files you have to edit (patches when --annotate is used, and the
479 summary when --compose is used). If false, files will be edited one
480 after the other, spawning a new editor each time.
481 sendemail.confirm
483 Sets the default for whether to confirm before sending. Must be one
484 of always, never, cc, compose, or auto. See --confirm in the
485 previous section for the meaning of these values.
486
488 Use gmail as the smtp server
489 To use git send-email to send your patches through the GMail SMTP
490 server, edit ~/.gitconfig to specify your account settings:
491 [sendemail]
493 smtpEncryption = tls
494 smtpServer = smtp.gmail.com
495 smtpUser = yourname@gmail.com
496 smtpServerPort = 587
497 If you have multi-factor authentication set up on your Gmail account,
499 you will need to generate an app-specific password for use with git
500 send-email. Visit
501 https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords to create
502 it.
503 If you do not have multi-factor authentication set up on your Gmail
505 account, you will need to allow less secure app access. Visit
506 https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps to enable it.
507 Once your commits are ready to be sent to the mailing list, run the
509 following commands:
510 $ git format-patch --cover-letter -M origin/master -o outgoing/
512 $ edit outgoing/0000-*
513 $ git send-email outgoing/*
514 The first time you run it, you will be prompted for your credentials.
516 Enter the app-specific or your regular password as appropriate. If you
517 have credential helper configured (see git-credential(1)), the password
518 will be saved in the credential store so you won’t have to type it the
519 next time.
520 Note: the following core Perl modules that may be installed with your
522 distribution of Perl are required: MIME::Base64, MIME::QuotedPrint,
523 Net::Domain and Net::SMTP. These additional Perl modules are also
524 required: Authen::SASL and Mail::Address.
525
527 git-format-patch(1), git-imap-send(1), mbox(5)
528
530 Part of the git(1) suite
531Git 2.36.1 2022-05-05 GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1)