git-send-email(1) — Linux manual page

GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1)               Git Manual              GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1)

NAME         top

       git-send-email - Send a collection of patches as emails

SYNOPSIS         top

       git send-email [] (|)...
       git send-email [] 
       git send-email --dump-aliases
       git send-email --translate-aliases

DESCRIPTION         top

       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         top

   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=
,...
           Specify a "Bcc:" value for each email. Default is the value of
           sendemail.bcc.

           This option may be specified multiple times.

       --cc=
,...
           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=

           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=

           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=
           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.

       --subject=
           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=
,...
           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=
           When encountering a non-ASCII message or subject that does not
           declare its encoding, add headers/quoting to indicate it is
           encoded in . 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=
           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 a 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=

           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=
           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=
           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=
           Specifies 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=
           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 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.

       --no-smtp-auth
           Disable SMTP authentication. Short hand for --smtp-auth=none

       --smtp-server=
           If set, specifies 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=
           Specifies 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=
           If set, specifies 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 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 verify(1)
           -CAfile and -CApath 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-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.

       --batch-size=
           Some email servers (e.g. smtp.163.com) limit the number 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 $ 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=
           Waiting $ 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
           Clears any list of "To:", "Cc:", "Bcc:" addresses previously
           set via config.

       --no-identity
           Clears the previously read value of sendemail.identity set via
           config, if any.

       --to-cmd=
           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=
           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=
           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.

       --[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=
           A configuration identity. When given, causes values in the
           sendemail. subsection to take precedence over values
           in the sendemail section. The default identity is the value of
           sendemail.identity.

       --[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.

       --[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.

       --[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=
           Specify an additional category of recipients to suppress the
           auto-cc of:

           •   author will avoid including the patch author.

           •   self will avoid including the sender.

           •   cc will avoid including anyone mentioned in Cc lines in
               the patch header except for self (use self for that).

           •   bodycc will avoid including anyone mentioned in Cc lines
               in the patch body (commit message) except for self (use
               self for that).

           •   sob will avoid including anyone mentioned in the
               Signed-off-by trailers except for self (use self for
               that).

           •   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).

           •   cccmd will avoid running the --cc-cmd.

           •   body is equivalent to sob + bodycc + misc-by.

           •   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-cc is specified.

       --[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.

       --[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.

       --[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=
           Confirm just before sending:

           •   always will always confirm before sending

           •   never will never confirm before sending

           •   cc will confirm before sending when send-email has
               automatically added addresses from the patch to the Cc
               list

           •   compose will confirm before sending the first message when
               using --compose.

           •   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.

       --[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.

       --[no-]validate
           Perform sanity checks on patches. Currently, validation means
           the following:

           •   Invoke the sendemail-validate hook if present (see
               githooks(5)).

           •   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         top

       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. 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..*
           Identity-specific versions of the sendemail.*  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 true, makes 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

               •   Quoted aliases and quoted addresses are not supported:
                   lines that contain a " symbol are ignored.

               •   Redirection to a file (/path/name) or pipe (|command)
                   is not supported.

               •   File inclusion (:include: /path/name) is not
                   supported.

               •   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.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.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 --batch-size option
           of git-send-email(1).

       sendemail.smtpReloginDelay
           Seconds to wait before reconnecting to the smtp server. See
           also the --relogin-delay option of 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         top

   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 = tls
                   smtpServer = smtp.gmail.com
                   smtpUser = [email protected]
                   smtpServerPort = 587

       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.

       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 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.

       Note: the following core Perl modules that may be installed with
       your distribution of Perl are required: MIME::Base64,
       MIME::QuotedPrint, Net::Domain and Net::SMTP. These additional
       Perl modules are also required: Authen::SASL and Mail::Address.

SEE ALSO         top

       git-format-patch(1), git-imap-send(1), mbox(5)

GIT         top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
       system) project.  Information about the project can be found at 
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       [email protected]

Git 2.48.1.166.g58b580          2025-01-31              GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1)

Pages that refer to this page: git(1),  git-config(1),  git-format-patch(1),  git-imap-send(1),  git-send-email(1),  stg-email(1),  githooks(5),  giteveryday(7),  gitworkflows(7)

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