git-send-email(1) Git Manual git-send-email(1)
NAME
git-send-email - Send a collection of patches as emails
SYNOPSIS
git send-email [<options>] (<file>|<directory>)...
git send-email [<options>] <format-patch-options>
git send-email --dump-aliases
git send-email --translate-aliases
DESCRIPTION
Takes the patches given on the command line and emails them out. Patches
can be specified as files, directories (which will send all files in the
directory), or directly as a revision list. In the last case, any format
accepted by git-format-patch(1) can be passed to git send-email, as well
as options understood by git-format-patch(1).
The header of the email is configurable via command-line options. If not
specified on the command line, the user will be prompted with a ReadLine
enabled interface to provide the necessary information.
There are two formats accepted for patch files:
1. mbox format files
This is what git-format-patch(1) generates. Most headers and MIME
formatting are ignored.
2. The original format used by Greg Kroah-Hartman's
send_lots_of_email.pl script
This format expects the first line of the file to contain the Cc:
value and the Subject: of the message as the second line.
OPTIONS
Composing
--annotate
Review and edit each patch you're about to send. Default is the value
of sendemail.annotate. See the CONFIGURATION section for
sendemail.multiEdit.
--bcc=<address>,...
Specify a Bcc: value for each email. Default is the value of
sendemail.bcc.
This option may be specified multiple times.
--cc=<address>,...
Specify a starting Cc: value for each email. Default is the value of
sendemail.cc.
This option may be specified multiple times.
--compose
Invoke a text editor (see GIT_EDITOR in git-var(1)) to edit an
introductory message for the patch series.
When --compose is used, git send-email will use the From, To, Cc,
Bcc, Subject, Reply-To, and In-Reply-To headers specified in the
message. If the body of the message (what you type after the headers
and a blank line) only contains blank (or Git: prefixed) lines, the
summary won't be sent, but the headers mentioned above will be used
unless they are removed.
Missing From or In-Reply-To headers will be prompted for.
See the CONFIGURATION section for sendemail.multiEdit.
--from=<address>
Specify the sender of the emails. If not specified on the command
line, the value of the sendemail.from configuration option is used.
If neither the command-line option nor sendemail.from are set, then
the user will be prompted for the value. The default for the prompt
will be the value of GIT_AUTHOR_IDENT, or GIT_COMMITTER_IDENT if that
is not set, as returned by git var -l.
--reply-to=<address>
Specify the address where replies from recipients should go to. Use
this if replies to messages should go to another address than what is
specified with the --from parameter.
--in-reply-to=<identifier>
Make the first mail (or all the mails with --no-thread) appear as a
reply to the given Message-ID, which avoids breaking threads to
provide a new patch series. The second and subsequent emails will be
sent as replies according to the --[no-]chain-reply-to setting.
So for example when --thread and --no-chain-reply-to are specified,
the second and subsequent patches will be replies to the first one
like in the illustration below where [PATCH v2 0/3] is in reply to
[PATCH 0/2]:
[PATCH 0/2] Here is what I did...
[PATCH 1/2] Clean up and tests
[PATCH 2/2] Implementation
[PATCH v2 0/3] Here is a reroll
[PATCH v2 1/3] Clean up
[PATCH v2 2/3] New tests
[PATCH v2 3/3] Implementation
Only necessary if --compose is also set. If --compose is not set,
this will be prompted for.
--outlook-id-fix, --no-outlook-id-fix
Microsoft Outlook SMTP servers discard the Message-ID sent via email
and assign a new random Message-ID, thus breaking threads.
With --outlook-id-fix, git send-email uses a mechanism specific to
Outlook servers to learn the Message-ID the server assigned to fix
the threading. Use it only when you know that the server reports the
rewritten Message-ID the same way as Outlook servers do.
Without this option specified, the fix is done by default when
talking to smtp.office365.com or smtp-mail.outlook.com. Use
--no-outlook-id-fix to disable even when talking to these two
servers.
--subject=<string>
Specify the initial subject of the email thread. Only necessary if
--compose is also set. If --compose is not set, this will be prompted
for.
--to=<address>,...
Specify the primary recipient of the emails generated. Generally,
this will be the upstream maintainer of the project involved. Default
is the value of the sendemail.to configuration value; if that is
unspecified, and --to-cmd is not specified, this will be prompted
for.
This option may be specified multiple times.
--8bit-encoding=<encoding>
When encountering a non-ASCII message or subject that does not
declare its encoding, add headers/quoting to indicate it is encoded
in <encoding>. Default is the value of the
sendemail.assume8bitEncoding; if that is unspecified, this will be
prompted for if any non-ASCII files are encountered.
Note that no attempts whatsoever are made to validate the encoding.
--compose-encoding=<encoding>
Specify encoding of compose message. Default is the value of the
sendemail.composeEncoding; if that is unspecified, UTF-8 is assumed.
--transfer-encoding=(7bit|8bit|quoted-printable|base64|auto)
Specify the transfer encoding to be used to send the message over
SMTP. 7bit will fail upon encountering a non-ASCII message.
quoted-printable can be useful when the repository contains files
that contain carriage returns, but makes the raw patch email file (as
saved from an MUA) much harder to inspect manually. base64 is even
more fool proof, but also even more opaque. auto will use 8bit when
possible, and quoted-printable otherwise.
Default is the value of the sendemail.transferEncoding configuration
value; if that is unspecified, default to auto.
--xmailer, --no-xmailer
Add (or prevent adding) the X-Mailer: header. By default, the header
is added, but it can be turned off by setting the sendemail.xmailer
configuration variable to false.
Sending
--envelope-sender=<address>
Specify the envelope sender used to send the emails. This is useful
if your default address is not the address that is subscribed to a
list. In order to use the From address, set the value to auto. If you
use the sendmail binary, you must have suitable privileges for the -f
parameter. Default is the value of the sendemail.envelopeSender
configuration variable; if that is unspecified, choosing the envelope
sender is left to your MTA.
--sendmail-cmd=<command>
Specify a command to run to send the email. The command should be
sendmail-like; specifically, it must support the -i option. The
command will be executed in the shell if necessary. Default is the
value of sendemail.sendmailCmd. If unspecified, and if --smtp-server
is also unspecified, git send-email will search for sendmail in
/usr/sbin, /usr/lib and $PATH.
--smtp-encryption=<encryption>
Specify in what way encrypting begins for the SMTP connection. Valid
values are ssl and tls. Any other value reverts to plain
(unencrypted) SMTP, which defaults to port 25. Despite the names,
both values will use the same newer version of TLS, but for historic
reasons have these names. ssl refers to "implicit" encryption
(sometimes called SMTPS), that uses port 465 by default. tls refers
to "explicit" encryption (often known as STARTTLS), that uses port 25
by default. Other ports might be used by the SMTP server, which are
not the default. Commonly found alternative port for tls and
unencrypted is 587. You need to check your provider's documentation
or your server configuration to make sure for your own case. Default
is the value of sendemail.smtpEncryption.
--smtp-domain=<FQDN>
Specify the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) used in the HELO/EHLO
command to the SMTP server. Some servers require the FQDN to match
your IP address. If not set, git send-email attempts to determine
your FQDN automatically. Default is the value of
sendemail.smtpDomain.
--smtp-auth=<mechanisms>
Whitespace-separated list of allowed SMTP-AUTH mechanisms. This
setting forces using only the listed mechanisms. Example:
$ git send-email --smtp-auth="PLAIN LOGIN GSSAPI" ...
If at least one of the specified mechanisms matches the ones
advertised by the SMTP server and if it is supported by the utilized
SASL library, the mechanism is used for authentication. If neither
sendemail.smtpAuth nor --smtp-auth is specified, all mechanisms
supported by the SASL library can be used. The special value none
maybe specified to completely disable authentication independently of
--smtp-user.
--smtp-pass[=<password>]
Password for SMTP-AUTH. The argument is optional: If no argument is
specified, then the empty string is used as the password. Default is
the value of sendemail.smtpPass, however --smtp-pass always overrides
this value.
Furthermore, passwords need not be specified in configuration files
or on the command line. If a username has been specified (with
--smtp-user or a sendemail.smtpUser), but no password has been
specified (with --smtp-pass or sendemail.smtpPass), then a password
is obtained using git-credential(1).
--no-smtp-auth
Disable SMTP authentication. Short hand for --smtp-auth=none.
--smtp-server=<host>
Specify the outgoing SMTP server to use (e.g. smtp.example.com or a
raw IP address). If unspecified, and if --sendmail-cmd is also
unspecified, the default is to search for sendmail in /usr/sbin,
/usr/lib and $PATH if such a program is available, falling back to
localhost otherwise.
For backward compatibility, this option can also specify a full
pathname of a sendmail-like program instead; the program must support
the -i option. This method does not support passing arguments or
using plain command names. For those use cases, consider using
--sendmail-cmd instead.
--smtp-server-port=<port>
Specify a port different from the default port (SMTP servers
typically listen to smtp port 25, but may also listen to submission
port 587, or the common SSL smtp port 465); symbolic port names (e.g.
submission instead of 587) are also accepted. The port can also be
set with the sendemail.smtpServerPort configuration variable.
--smtp-server-option=<option>
Specify the outgoing SMTP server option to use. Default value can be
specified by the sendemail.smtpServerOption configuration option.
The --smtp-server-option option must be repeated for each option you
want to pass to the server. Likewise, different lines in the
configuration files must be used for each option.
--smtp-ssl
Legacy alias for --smtp-encryption ssl.
--smtp-ssl-cert-path <path>
Path to a store of trusted CA certificates for SMTP SSL/TLS
certificate validation (either a directory that has been processed by
c_rehash, or a single file containing one or more PEM format
certificates concatenated together: see the description of the
-CAfile <file> and the -CApath <dir> options of
https://docs.openssl.org/master/man1/openssl-verify/ [OpenSSL's
verify(1) manual page] for more information on these). Set it to an
empty string to disable certificate verification. Defaults to the
value of the sendemail.smtpSSLCertPath configuration variable, if
set, or the backing SSL library's compiled-in default otherwise
(which should be the best choice on most platforms).
--smtp-ssl-client-cert <path>
Path to the client certificate file to present if requested by the
server. This option is required when the server is set up to verify
client certificates. If the corresponding private key is not included
in the file, it must be supplied using the sendemail.smtpSSLClientKey
configuration variable or the --smtp-ssl-client-key option. Defaults
to the value of the sendemail.smtpSSLClientCert configuration
variable, if set.
--smtp-ssl-client-key <path>
Path to the client private key file that corresponds to the client
certificate. To avoid misconfiguration, this option must be used in
conjunction with the sendemail.smtpSSLClientKey configuration
variable or the --smtp-ssl-client-cert option. If the client key is
included in the client certificate, the choice of private key depends
on the format of the certificate. Visit
https://metacpan.org/pod/IO::Socket::SSL for more details. Defaults
to the value of the sendemail.smtpSSLClientKey configuration
variable, if set.
--smtp-user=<user>
Username for SMTP-AUTH. Default is the value of sendemail.smtpUser;
if a username is not specified (with --smtp-user or
sendemail.smtpUser), then authentication is not attempted.
--smtp-debug=(0|1)
Enable (1) or disable (0) debug output. If enabled, SMTP commands and
replies will be printed. Useful to debug TLS connection and
authentication problems.
--imap-sent-folder=<folder>
Some email providers (e.g. iCloud) do not send a copy of the emails
sent using SMTP to the Sent folder or similar in your mailbox. Use
this option to use git imap-send to send a copy of the emails to the
folder specified using this option. You can run git imap-send --list
to get a list of valid folder names, including the correct name of
the Sent folder in your mailbox. You can also use this option to send
emails to a dedicated IMAP folder of your choice.
This feature requires setting up git imap-send. See git-imap-send(1)
for instructions.
--use-imap-only, --no-use-imap-only
If this is set, all emails will only be copied to the IMAP folder
specified with --imap-sent-folder or sendemail.imapSentFolder and
will not be sent to the recipients. Useful if you just want to create
a draft of the emails and use another email client to send them. If
disabled with --no-use-imap-only, the emails will be sent like usual.
Disabled by default, but the sendemail.useImapOnly configuration
variable can be used to enable it.
This feature requires setting up git imap-send. See git-imap-send(1)
for instructions.
--batch-size=<num>
Some email servers (e.g. smtp.163.com) limit the number of emails to
be sent per session (connection) and this will lead to a failure when
sending many messages. With this option, send-email will disconnect
after sending <num> messages and wait for a few seconds (see
--relogin-delay) and reconnect, to work around such a limit. You may
want to use some form of credential helper to avoid having to retype
your password every time this happens. Defaults to the
sendemail.smtpBatchSize configuration variable.
--relogin-delay=<int>
Waiting <int> seconds before reconnecting to SMTP server. Used
together with --batch-size option. Defaults to the
sendemail.smtpReloginDelay configuration variable.
Automating
--no-to, --no-cc, --no-bcc
Clear any list of To:, Cc:, Bcc: addresses previously set via config.
--no-identity
Clear the previously read value of sendemail.identity set via config,
if any.
--to-cmd=<command>
Specify a command to execute once per patch file which should
generate patch file specific To: entries. Output of this command must
be single email address per line. Default is the value of
sendemail.toCmd configuration value.
--cc-cmd=<command>
Specify a command to execute once per patch file which should
generate patch file specific Cc: entries. Output of this command must
be single email address per line. Default is the value of
sendemail.ccCmd configuration value.
--header-cmd=<command>
Specify a command that is executed once per outgoing message and
output RFC 2822 style header lines to be inserted into them. When the
sendemail.headerCmd configuration variable is set, its value is
always used. When --header-cmd is provided at the command line, its
value takes precedence over the sendemail.headerCmd configuration
variable.
--no-header-cmd
Disable any header command in use.
--chain-reply-to, --no-chain-reply-to
If this is set, each email will be sent as a reply to the previous
email sent. If disabled with --no-chain-reply-to, all emails after
the first will be sent as replies to the first email sent. When using
this, it is recommended that the first file given be an overview of
the entire patch series. Disabled by default, but the
sendemail.chainReplyTo configuration variable can be used to enable
it.
--identity=<identity>
A configuration identity. When given, causes values in the
sendemail.<identity> subsection to take precedence over values in the
sendemail section. The default identity is the value of
sendemail.identity.
--signed-off-by-cc, --no-signed-off-by-cc
If this is set, add emails found in the Signed-off-by trailer or Cc:
lines to the cc list. Default is the value of sendemail.signedOffByCc
configuration value; if that is unspecified, default to
--signed-off-by-cc.
--cc-cover, --no-cc-cover
If this is set, emails found in Cc: headers in the first patch of the
series (typically the cover letter) are added to the cc list for each
email set. Default is the value of sendemail.ccCover configuration
value; if that is unspecified, default to --no-cc-cover.
--to-cover, --no-to-cover
If this is set, emails found in To: headers in the first patch of the
series (typically the cover letter) are added to the to list for each
email set. Default is the value of sendemail.toCover configuration
value; if that is unspecified, default to --no-to-cover.
--suppress-cc=<category>
Specify an additional category of recipients to suppress the auto-cc
of:
o author will avoid including the patch author.
o self will avoid including the sender.
o cc will avoid including anyone mentioned in Cc lines in the patch
header except for self (use self for that).
o bodycc will avoid including anyone mentioned in Cc lines in the
patch body (commit message) except for self (use self for that).
o sob will avoid including anyone mentioned in the Signed-off-by
trailers except for self (use self for that).
o misc-by will avoid including anyone mentioned in Acked-by,
Reviewed-by, Tested-by and other "-by" lines in the patch body,
except Signed-off-by (use sob for that).
o cccmd will avoid running the --cc-cmd.
o body is equivalent to sob + bodycc + misc-by.
o all will suppress all auto cc values.
Default is the value of sendemail.suppressCc configuration value; if
that is unspecified, default to self if --suppress-from is specified,
as well as body if --no-signed-off-by-cc is specified.
--suppress-from, --no-suppress-from
If this is set, do not add the From: address to the Cc: list. Default
is the value of sendemail.suppressFrom configuration value; if that
is unspecified, default to --no-suppress-from.
--thread, --no-thread
If this is set, the In-Reply-To and References headers will be added
to each email sent. Whether each mail refers to the previous email
(deep threading per git format-patch wording) or to the first email
(shallow threading) is governed by --[no-]chain-reply-to.
If disabled with --no-thread, those headers will not be added (unless
specified with --in-reply-to). Default is the value of the
sendemail.thread configuration value; if that is unspecified, default
to --thread.
It is up to the user to ensure that no In-Reply-To header already
exists when git send-email is asked to add it (especially note that
git format-patch can be configured to do the threading itself).
Failure to do so may not produce the expected result in the
recipient's MUA.
--mailmap, --no-mailmap
Use the mailmap file (see gitmailmap(5)) to map all addresses to
their canonical real name and email address. Additional mailmap data
specific to git send-email may be provided using the
sendemail.mailmap.file or sendemail.mailmap.blob configuration
values. Defaults to sendemail.mailmap.
Administering
--confirm=<mode>
Confirm just before sending:
o always will always confirm before sending.
o never will never confirm before sending.
o cc will confirm before sending when send-email has automatically
added addresses from the patch to the Cc list.
o compose will confirm before sending the first message when using
--compose.
o auto is equivalent to cc + compose.
Default is the value of sendemail.confirm configuration value; if
that is unspecified, default to auto unless any of the suppress
options have been specified, in which case default to compose.
--dry-run
Do everything except actually send the emails.
--format-patch, --no-format-patch
When an argument may be understood either as a reference or as a file
name, choose to understand it as a format-patch argument
(--format-patch) or as a file name (--no-format-patch). By default,
when such a conflict occurs, git send-email will fail.
--quiet
Make git send-email less verbose. One line per email should be all
that is output.
--validate, --no-validate
Perform sanity checks on patches. Currently, validation means the
following:
o Invoke the sendemail-validate hook if present (see githooks(5)).
o Warn of patches that contain lines longer than 998 characters
unless a suitable transfer encoding (auto, base64, or
quoted-printable) is used; this is due to SMTP limits as
described by https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt.
Default is the value of sendemail.validate; if this is not set,
default to --validate.
--force
Send emails even if safety checks would prevent it.
Information
--dump-aliases
Instead of the normal operation, dump the shorthand alias names from
the configured alias file(s), one per line in alphabetical order.
Note that this only includes the alias name and not its expanded
email addresses. See sendemail.aliasesFile for more information about
aliases.
--translate-aliases
Instead of the normal operation, read from standard input and
interpret each line as an email alias. Translate it according to the
configured alias file(s). Output each translated name and email
address to standard output, one per line. See sendemail.aliasFile for
more information about aliases.
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what's found
there:
sendemail.identity
A configuration identity. When given, causes values in the
sendemail.<identity> subsection to take precedence over values in the
sendemail section. The default identity is the value of
sendemail.identity.
sendemail.smtpEncryption
See git-send-email(1) for description. Note that this setting is not
subject to the identity mechanism.
sendemail.smtpSSLCertPath
Path to ca-certificates (either a directory or a single file). Set it
to an empty string to disable certificate verification.
sendemail.smtpSSLClientCert
Path to the client certificate file to present if requested by the
server. This is required when the server is set up to verify client
certificates. If the corresponding private key is not included in the
file, it must be supplied using sendemail.smtpSSLClientKey or the
--smtp-ssl-client-key option.
sendemail.smtpSSLClientKey
Path to the client private key file that corresponds to the client
certificate. To avoid misconfiguration, this configuration must be
used in conjunction with sendemail.smtpSSLClientCert or the
--smtp-ssl-client-cert option. If the client key is included in the
client certificate, the choice of private key depends on the format
of the certificate. Visit https://metacpan.org/pod/IO::Socket::SSL
for more details.
sendemail.<identity>.<config>
Identity-specific versions of the sendemail.<config> parameters found
below, taking precedence over those when this identity is selected,
through either the command-line or sendemail.identity.
sendemail.multiEdit
If true (default), a single editor instance will be spawned to edit
files you have to edit (patches when --annotate is used, and the
summary when --compose is used). If false, files will be edited one
after the other, spawning a new editor each time.
sendemail.confirm
Sets the default for whether to confirm before sending. Must be one
of always, never, cc, compose, or auto. See --confirm in the git-
send-email(1) documentation for the meaning of these values.
sendemail.mailmap
If git-send-email(1) assume --mailmap, otherwise assume
--no-mailmap. False by default.
sendemail.mailmap.file
The location of a git-send-email(1) specific augmenting mailmap file.
The default mailmap and mailmap.file are loaded first. Thus, entries
in this file take precedence over entries in the default mailmap
locations. See gitmailmap(5).
sendemail.mailmap.blob
Like sendemail.mailmap.file, but consider the value as a reference to
a blob in the repository. Entries in sendemail.mailmap.file take
precedence over entries here. See gitmailmap(5).
sendemail.aliasesFile
To avoid typing long email addresses, point this to one or more email
aliases files. You must also supply sendemail.aliasFileType.
sendemail.aliasFileType
Format of the file(s) specified in sendemail.aliasesFile. Must be one
of mutt, mailrc, pine, elm, gnus, or sendmail.
What an alias file in each format looks like can be found in the
documentation of the email program of the same name. The differences
and limitations from the standard formats are described below:
sendmail
o Quoted aliases and quoted addresses are not supported: lines
that contain a " symbol are ignored.
o Redirection to a file (/path/name) or pipe (|command) is not
supported.
o File inclusion (:include: /path/name) is not supported.
o Warnings are printed on the standard error output for any
explicitly unsupported constructs, and any other lines that
are not recognized by the parser.
sendemail.annotate, sendemail.bcc, sendemail.cc, sendemail.ccCmd,
sendemail.chainReplyTo, sendemail.envelopeSender, sendemail.from,
sendemail.headerCmd, sendemail.signedOffByCc, sendemail.smtpPass,
sendemail.suppressCc, sendemail.suppressFrom, sendemail.to,
sendemail.toCmd, sendemail.smtpDomain, sendemail.smtpServer,
sendemail.smtpServerPort, sendemail.smtpServerOption, sendemail.smtpUser,
sendemail.imapSentFolder, sendemail.useImapOnly, sendemail.thread,
sendemail.transferEncoding, sendemail.validate, sendemail.xmailer
These configuration variables all provide a default for git-send-
email(1) command-line options. See its documentation for details.
sendemail.outlookidfix
If git-send-email(1) assume --outlook-id-fix, and if
false assume --no-outlook-id-fix. If not specified, it will behave
the same way as if --outlook-id-fix is not specified.
sendemail.signedOffCc (deprecated)
Deprecated alias for sendemail.signedOffByCc.
sendemail.smtpBatchSize
Number of messages to be sent per connection, after that a relogin
will happen. If the value is 0 or undefined, send all messages in one
connection. See also the git-send-email(1).
sendemail.smtpReloginDelay
Seconds to wait before reconnecting to the smtp server. See also the
git-send-email(1).
sendemail.forbidSendmailVariables
To avoid common misconfiguration mistakes, git-send-email(1) will
abort with a warning if any configuration options for sendmail exist.
Set this variable to bypass the check.
EXAMPLES OF SMTP SERVERS
Use Gmail as the SMTP Server
To use git send-email to send your patches through the Gmail SMTP server,
edit ~/.gitconfig to specify your account settings:
[sendemail]
smtpEncryption = ssl
smtpServer = smtp.gmail.com
smtpUser = yourname@gmail.com
smtpServerPort = 465
Gmail does not allow using your regular password for git send-email. If
you have multi-factor authentication set up on your Gmail account, you
can generate an app-specific password for use with git send-email. Visit
https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords to create it.
Alternatively, instead of using an app-specific password, you can use
OAuth2.0 authentication with Gmail. OAuth2.0 is more secure than
app-specific passwords, and works regardless of whether you have
multi-factor authentication set up. OAUTHBEARER and XOAUTH2 are common
mechanisms used for this type of authentication. Gmail supports both of
them. As an example, if you want to use OAUTHBEARER, edit your
~/.gitconfig file and add smtpAuth = OAUTHBEARER to your account
settings:
[sendemail]
smtpEncryption = ssl
smtpServer = smtp.gmail.com
smtpUser = yourname@gmail.com
smtpServerPort = 465
smtpAuth = OAUTHBEARER
Another alternative is using a tool developed by Google known as
sendgmail[1] to send emails using git send-email.
Use Microsoft Outlook as the SMTP Server
Unlike Gmail, Microsoft Outlook no longer supports app-specific
passwords. Therefore, OAuth2.0 authentication must be used for Outlook.
Also, it only supports XOAUTH2 authentication mechanism.
Edit ~/.gitconfig to specify your account settings for Outlook and use
its SMTP server with git send-email:
[sendemail]
smtpEncryption = tls
smtpServer = smtp.office365.com
smtpUser = yourname@outlook.com
smtpServerPort = 587
smtpAuth = XOAUTH2
SENDING PATCHES
Once your commits are ready to be sent to the mailing list, run the
following commands:
$ git format-patch --cover-letter -M origin/master -o outgoing/
$ edit outgoing/0000-*
$ git send-email outgoing/*
The first time you run it, you will be prompted for your credentials.
Enter the app-specific or your regular password as appropriate.
If you have a credential helper configured (see git-credential(1)), the
password will be saved in the credential store so you won't have to type
it the next time.
If you are using OAuth2.0 authentication, you need to use an access token
in place of a password when prompted. Various OAuth2.0 token generators
are available online. Community maintained credential helpers are also
available:
o git-credential-gmail[2] (cross platform, dedicated helper for
authenticating Gmail accounts)
o git-credential-outlook[2] (cross platform, dedicated helper for
authenticating Microsoft Outlook accounts)
o git-credential-yahoo[2] (cross platform, dedicated helper for
authenticating Yahoo accounts)
o git-credential-aol[2] (cross platform, dedicated helper for
authenticating AOL accounts)
You can also see gitcredentials(7) for more OAuth based authentication
helpers.
Proton Mail does not provide an SMTP server to send emails. If you are a
paid customer of Proton Mail, you can use Proton Mail Bridge[3]
officially provided by Proton Mail to create a local SMTP server for
sending emails. For both free and paid users, community maintained
projects like git-protonmail[2] can be used.
Note: the following core Perl modules that may be installed with your
distribution of Perl are required:
MIME::Base64[4], MIME::QuotedPrint[5], Net::Domain[6] and Net::SMTP[7].
These additional Perl modules are also required:
Authen::SASL[8] and Mail::Address[9].
Exploiting the sendmailCmd option of git send-email
Apart from sending emails via an SMTP server, git send-email can also
send emails through any application that supports sendmail-like commands.
You can read documentation of --sendmail-cmd=<command> above for more
information. This ability can be very useful if you want to use another
application as an SMTP client for git send-email, or if your email
provider uses proprietary APIs instead of SMTP to send emails.
As an example, lets see how to configure msmtp[10], a popular SMTP client
found in many Linux distributions. Edit ~/.gitconfig to instruct
git-send-email to use it for sending emails.
[sendemail]
sendmailCmd = /usr/bin/msmtp # Change this to the path where msmtp is installed
Links of a few such community maintained helpers are:
o msmtp[10] (popular SMTP client with many features, available for
Linux and macOS)
o git-protonmail[2] (cross platform client that can send emails using
the ProtonMail API)
o git-msgraph[2] (cross platform client that can send emails using the
Microsoft Graph API)
CAVEATS
The output from git-format-patch(1) can lead to a different commit
message when applied with git-am(1). The patch that is applied may also
be different from the one that was generated, or patch application may
fail outright.
Any line that is of the form:
o three-dashes and end-of-line, or
o a line that begins with diff -, or
o a line that begins with `Index: `
is taken as the beginning of a patch, and the commit log message is
terminated before the first occurrence of such a line.
Note that this is especially problematic for unindented diffs that occur
in the commit message; the diff in the commit message might get applied
along with the patch section, or the patch application machinery might
trip up because the patch target doesn't apply. This could for example be
caused by a diff in a Markdown code block.
The solution for this is to indent the diff or other text that could
cause problems.
This loss of fidelity might be simple to notice if you are applying
patches directly from a mailbox. However, changes originating from Git
could be applied in bulk, in which case this would be much harder to
notice. This could for example be a Linux distribution which uses patch
files to apply changes on top of the commits from the upstream
repositories. This goes to show that this behavior does not only impact
email workflows.
Given these limitations, one might be tempted to use a general-purpose
utility like patch(1) instead. However, patch(1) will not only look for
unindented diffs (like git-am(1)) but will try to apply indented diffs as
well.
SEE ALSO
git-format-patch(1), git-imap-send(1), mbox(5)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. sendgmail
https://github.com/google/gmail-oauth2-tools/tree/master/go/sendgmail
2. git-credential-gmail
https://github.com/AdityaGarg8/git-credential-email
3. Proton Mail Bridge
https://proton.me/mail/bridge
4. MIME::Base64
https://metacpan.org/pod/MIME::Base64
5. MIME::QuotedPrint
https://metacpan.org/pod/MIME::QuotedPrint
6. Net::Domain
https://metacpan.org/pod/Net::Domain
7. Net::SMTP
https://metacpan.org/pod/Net::SMTP
8. Authen::SASL
https://metacpan.org/pod/Authen::SASL
9. Mail::Address
https://metacpan.org/pod/Mail::Address
10. msmtp
https://marlam.de/msmtp/
Git 2.56.0 2026-09-27 git-send-email(1)
git 2.56.0 - Generated Thu Oct 1 18:15:28 CDT 2026