Send email from Cocoa

Question

How can I send an email from a Cocoa app without using any email clients ? I have NSURL but it opens up an email client. I would like to send the email without this happening.

Solution 1

UPDATE: As others suggested, from 10.9 you can use NSSharingService that supports attachments as well!

Swift example:

    let emailImage          = NSImage.init(named: "ImageToShare")!
    let emailBody           = "Email Body"
    let emailService        =  NSSharingService.init(named: NSSharingServiceNameComposeEmail)!
    emailService.recipients = ["[email protected]"]
    emailService.subject    = "App Support"

    if emailService.canPerform(withItems: [emailBody,emailImage]) {
        // email can be sent
        emailService.perform(withItems: [emailBody,emailImage])
    } else {
        // email cannot be sent, perhaps no email client is set up
        // Show alert with email address and instructions

    }

OLD UPDATE: My old answers worked fine until I had to sandbox my apps for the App Store.~~ Since then the only solution I found was using simply a mailto: link.

- (void)sendEmailWithMail:(NSString *) senderAddress Address:(NSString *) toAddress Subject:(NSString *) subject Body:(NSString *) bodyText {
    NSString *mailtoAddress = [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"mailto:%@?Subject=%@&body=%@",toAddress,subject,bodyText] stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@"%20"];
    [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:mailtoAddress]];
    NSLog(@"Mailto:%@",mailtoAddress);
}

Disadvantage: No attachment! If you know how to make it work on Mac let me know!

OLD ANSWER: You can Apple Script, Apple's scripting bridge framework (Solution 2) or a Python script (Solution 3)

Solution 1 (Apple script):

attachments is an array of stings containing file paths

- (void)sendEmailWithMail:(NSString *) toAddress withSubject:(NSString *) subject Attachments:(NSArray *) attachments { 
NSString *bodyText = @"Your body text \n\r";    
NSString *emailString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"\
                         tell application \"Mail\"\n\
                         set newMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:\"%@\", content:\"%@\" & return} \n\
                         tell newMessage\n\
                         set visible to false\n\
                         set sender to \"%@\"\n\
                         make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {name:\"%@\", address:\"%@\"}\n\
                         tell content\n\
                         ",subject, bodyText, @"McAlarm alert", @"McAlarm User", toAddress ];

//add attachments to script
for (NSString *alarmPhoto in attachments) {
    emailString = [emailString stringByAppendingFormat:@"make new attachment with properties {file name:\"%@\"} at after the last paragraph\n\
                   ",alarmPhoto];

}
//finish script
emailString = [emailString stringByAppendingFormat:@"\
               end tell\n\
               send\n\
               end tell\n\
               end tell"];



//NSLog(@"%@",emailString);
NSAppleScript *emailScript = [[NSAppleScript alloc] initWithSource:emailString];
[emailScript executeAndReturnError:nil];
[emailScript release];

/* send the message */
NSLog(@"Message passed to Mail");

}

Solution 2 (Apple scriptingbridge framework): You can use Apple's scriptingbridge framework to use Mail to send your message
Apple's exmaple link it's pretty straightforward, you only need to fiddle with adding a rule and Mail.app to your project. Read Readme.txt carefully.

Change "emailMessage.visible = YES;" to "emailMessage.visible = NO;" so it sends it in the background.

Disadvantage: users need to have valid accounts under Mail.

Solution 3 (Python Script (no user account): You can also use a python script to send a message. Disadvantage: users have to enter SMTP details unless you grab them from Mail (but then you can use Solution 1 above directly), or you have to have a reliable SMTP relay hardcoded in your app (you can set up a gmail account and use it for that purpose, however if your apps send too many emails google can delete your account (SPAM))
I use this python script:

import sys
import smtplib
import os
import optparse

from email.MIMEMultipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.MIMEBase import MIMEBase
from email.MIMEText import MIMEText
from email.Utils import COMMASPACE, formatdate
from email import Encoders

username = sys.argv[1]
hostname = sys.argv[2]
port = sys.argv[3]
from_addr = sys.argv[4]
to_addr = sys.argv[5]
subject = sys.argv[6]
text = sys.argv[7]

password = getpass.getpass() if sys.stdin.isatty() else sys.stdin.readline().rstrip('\n')

message = MIMEMultipart()
message['From'] = from_addr
message['To'] = to_addr
message['Date'] = formatdate(localtime=True)
message['Subject'] = subject
#message['Cc'] = COMMASPACE.join(cc)
message.attach(MIMEText(text))

i = 0
for file in sys.argv:
    if i > 7:
        part = MIMEBase('application', 'octet-stream')
        part.set_payload(open(file, 'rb').read())
        Encoders.encode_base64(part)
        part.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="%s"' % os.path.basename(file))
        message.attach(part)
    i = i + 1

smtp = smtplib.SMTP(hostname,port)
smtp.starttls()
smtp.login(username, password)
del password

smtp.sendmail(from_addr, to_addr, message.as_string())
smtp.close()

And I call it form this method to send an email using a gmail account

- (bool) sendEmail:(NSTask *) task toAddress:(NSString *) toAddress withSubject:(NSString *) subject Attachments:(NSArray *) attachments {

        NSLog(@"Trying to send email message");
        //set arguments including attachments
        NSString *username = @"[email protected]";
        NSString *hostname = @"smtp.gmail.com";
        NSString *port = @"587";
        NSString *fromAddress = @"[email protected]";  
        NSString *bodyText = @"Body text \n\r"; 
        NSMutableArray *arguments = [NSMutableArray arrayWithObjects:
                                    programPath,
                                    username,
                                    hostname,
                                    port, 
                                    fromAddress, 
                                    toAddress,
                                    subject,
                                    bodyText, 
                                    nil];  
        for (int i = 0; i < [attachments count]; i++) {
            [arguments addObject:[attachments objectAtIndex:i]];
        }

        NSData *passwordData = [@"myGmailPassword" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];


        NSDictionary *environment = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
                                     @"", @"PYTHONPATH",
                                     @"/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin", @"PATH",
                                     nil];
        [task setEnvironment:environment];
        [task setLaunchPath:@"/usr/bin/python"];

        [task setArguments:arguments];

        NSPipe *stdinPipe = [NSPipe pipe];
        [task setStandardInput:stdinPipe];

        [task launch];

        [[stdinPipe fileHandleForReading] closeFile];
        NSFileHandle *stdinFH = [stdinPipe fileHandleForWriting];
        [stdinFH writeData:passwordData];
        [stdinFH writeData:[@"\n" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
        [stdinFH writeData:[@"Description" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
        [stdinFH closeFile];

        [task waitUntilExit];

        if ([task terminationStatus] == 0) { 
            NSLog(@"Message successfully sent");
            return YES;
        } else {
            NSLog(@"Message not sent");
            return NO;
        }
    }

I hope it helps

Solution 2

Those response are outdated Mac OS X 10.8 and more you should use NSSharingService

NSArray *shareItems=@[body,imageA,imageB];
NSSharingService *service = [NSSharingService sharingServiceNamed:NSSharingServiceNameComposeEmail];
service.delegate = self;
service.recipients=@[@"[email protected]"];
service.subject= [ NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@",NSLocalizedString(@"SLYRunner console",nil),currentDate];
[service performWithItems:shareItems];

The sharing service documentation page

Solution 3

This post should help - it cites example code too.

You also need to change line 114 in Controller.m to send the message in the background:

emailMessage.visible = NO;

Comments

[Lenny Magico]

I have had a look at that post before but it opens up the mail application when yous end the email which I don't really want, just want to send the email, basically I want to make my own mail application :), but thanks for the answer :D

[Dave DeLong]

Scripting Bridge... What if I use Thunderbird? Or Outlook? Or something else?

[Tibidabo]

Then you can use the perl script. Mail is the most popular email client, if it is not present you can use ask the user to enter his/her SMTP details or you can hardcode yours.

[Martin Hering]

You can try using [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] openFile:filePath withApplication:@"Mail"] to create a new email with an attachment. You can't prefill it with recipient however and you need to have access to a shared folder to save the file to (Downloads folder e.g.).

[Mark Bridges]

You could try using the new NSSharingService in Mavericks 'NSSharingService *service = [NSSharingService sharingServiceNamed:NSSharingServiceNameComposeEmail]; [service setRecipients:[NSArray arrayWithObject:@"Your email"]]; [service setSubject:@"Your subject"]; [service performWithItems:yourAttachments, nil];'

[fzwo]

This should be the accepted answer. Be aware though that if the user is using Outlook, the attachments won't get attached.

[Z S]

Another problem with NSSharingService is that you cannot set the email body of the composer beforehand (if that is something you need to do).

[insys]

@ZS this is not correct. See performWithItems: to set the message body.

[Vincent Tourraine]

The NSSharingService is 10.8+, but the recipients and subject properties are 10.9+ only, so you should add a respondToSelector: test if you target 10.8.

[Hedin]

This doesn't work on El Capitan. It throws NSSoftLinking - The ShareKit framework's library couldn't be loaded from /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ShareKit.framework/Version‌​s/A/ShareKit. to the console and nothing happens. Seems it has some restrictions on using private frameworks. FYI the app is not sandboxed.

[Hedin]

UPD: the same with Yosemite. I think, I need to link some framework to the app, not sure what.

[Hedin]

UPD: for anyone who gets the same error: ShareKit is 64 bit-only.

[jimwan]

i cannot attach file using this NSArray *shareItems=@[body,fileURL];

[lifjoy]

To clarify: specify attachments as file URLs, like so: NSArray *theShareItems = @[aMessageStr, [NSURL fileURLWithPath:anAttachmentsPath]];