Specify the from user when sending email using the mail command

Question

Does anyone know how to change the from user when sending email using the mail command? I have looked through the man page and can not see how to do this.

We are running Redhat Linux 5.

removed 'duplicate' tag. I believe the usage of this tag is not encouraged. — Paolo Bergantino, Sep 23 '08 at 06:47
You would probably have got the answer to this question a lot faster by just typing "man mail", which will show you the manual for the command. — Ludvig A. Norin, Sep 23 '08 at 06:50

score 80 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 23 '08 at 07:03

80

You can specify any extra header you may need with -a

$mail -s "Some random subject" -a "From: [email protected]" [email protected]

answered Sep 23 '08 at 07:03

daniels

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@michabbb not working on my Debian Wheezy, result: "From: [email protected]: No such file or directory" – baptx Feb 22 '15 at 19:41
Have you wrapped your param in quotes as in the example above? – daniels Feb 24 '15 at 10:01
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yes with quotes like your example and it displays the error I wrote. But the mail -r option is working https://stackoverflow.com/questions/119390/specify-the-from-user-when-sending-email-using-the-mail-command#comment-45619737 (btw don't forget the @username mention if you you want people to get notifications about your replies) – baptx Feb 26 '15 at 21:39
also working on ubuntu 14.04 (`/etc/alternatives/mail -> /usr/bin/bsd-mailx`), but not on 16.04 (`/etc/alternatives/mail -> /usr/bin/s-nail`) – Phillip -Zyan K Lee- Stockmann Feb 01 '17 at 09:24
Works on Ubuntu Xenial after `apt-get install mailutils`. – Gogowitsch Mar 18 '19 at 18:56

score 30 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 23 '08 at 06:44

30

http://www.mindspill.org/962 seems to have a solution.

Essentially:

echo "This is the main body of the mail" | mail -s "Subject of the Email" [email protected] -- -f [email protected]

answered Sep 23 '08 at 06:44

Paolo Bergantino

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Doesn't seem to pass the sniff-test. `--` marks end of options to `getopt(3)`, so how would `-f` possibly work as an option after `--`? Also, reading the man page for (bsd) `mail` on Ubuntu doesn't mention any such `-f` argument support. Lastly, testing this on Ubuntu 14.04 (with some disbelief and slight hope) shows that indeed it doesn't work. FWIW (hard to believe again) the original mindspill.org URL says it works on Red Hat without specifying a version. – arielf Jan 14 '16 at 01:11
Use the `-v` option for Verbose output `mail -v -s ...`. If the mail fails to deliver due to an improperly configured mail server for example, the smtp command log will show what has gone wrong. – Andrei Krasutski Jul 07 '17 at 06:27
in debian 9 -f is used to pass a filename – user1077915 Sep 22 '17 at 12:12

bfabry · Answer 3 · 2008-09-23T06:40:57.120

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mail -r [email protected] -R [email protected]

-r = from-addr -R = reply-to addr

The author has indicated his version of mail doesn't support this flag. But if you have a version that does this works fine.

edited Sep 23 '08 at 06:40

answered Sep 23 '08 at 06:31

bfabry

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The -r is not a valid option for the mail command option for the version of mail we have. – Joel Cunningham Sep 23 '08 at 06:35
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On Debian Wheezy, -r is working on mail command for editing From address but -R is not working for editing ReplyTo address. – baptx Feb 22 '15 at 19:39
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Just to clarify for anyone else -r DOES affect which address is checked for spf records – Kevin Mar 16 '15 at 18:38
Works fine with Postfix on Ubuntu 18. – Stefan Reich Nov 14 '19 at 13:02
-r worked for me and went to my gmail acct and not delayed spam (after configuring spf/dkim) BUT not the -R flag which wasn't a part of the original question anyway. – Marc Johnson Apr 05 '21 at 23:32

G.J · Answer 4 · 2019-02-14T10:03:24.393

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When sending over SMTP, the mail man page advises to set the from variable, in this way (Tested on CentOS 6):

mail -s Subject -S [email protected] [email protected]

You could also attach a file using the -a option:

mail -s Subject -S [email protected] -a path_to_attachement [email protected]

edited Feb 14 '19 at 10:03

answered May 05 '14 at 12:11

G.J

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Works for me on CentOS 7.5 – Pieter Meiresone Nov 30 '18 at 12:52

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 04 '13 at 20:58

None of these worked for me (Ubuntu 12.04) but finally with trial & error I got:

echo 'my message blabla\nSecond line (optional of course)' | 
mail -s "Your message title"
-r 'Your full name<[email protected]>'
-Sreplyto="[email protected]"
[email protected][,[email protected]]

(all in one line, there is no space in "-Sreplyto")

I got this mail command from:

apt-get install mailutils

score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 23 '08 at 06:49

5

You can append sendmail options to the end of the mail command by first adding --. -f is the command on sendmail to set the from address. So you can do this:

mail [email protected] -- -f [email protected]

answered Sep 23 '08 at 06:49

Gerald

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score 4 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 14 '14 at 13:41

None of the above worked for me. And it took me long to figure it out, hopefully this helps the next guy.

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with mailutils v2.1.

I found this solutions somewhere on the net, don't know where, can't find it again:

-aFrom:[email protected]

Full Command used:

cat /root/Reports/ServerName-Report-$DATE.txt | mail -s "Server-Name-Report-$DATE" [email protected] -aFrom:[email protected]

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

2

Here's a solution.

The second easiest solution after -r (which is to specify a From: header and separate it from the body by a newline like this

 $mail -s "Subject" [email protected]
 From: Joel <[email protected]>

 Hi!
 .

works in only a few mail versions, don't know what version redhat carries).

PS: Most versions of mail suck!

edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

Community

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answered Sep 23 '08 at 06:34

Vinko Vrsalovic

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score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 06 '15 at 15:21

Most people need to change two values when trying to correctly forge the from address on an email. First is the from address and the second is the orig-to address. Many of the solutions offered online only change one of these values.

If as root, I try a simple mail command to send myself an email it might look like this. echo "test" | mail -s "a test" [email protected]

And the associated logs: Feb 6 09:02:51 myserver postfix/qmgr[28875]: B10322269D: from=<[email protected]>, size=437, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Feb 6 09:02:52 myserver postfix/smtp[19848]: B10322269D: to=<[email protected]>, relay=myMTA[x.x.x.x]:25, delay=0.34, delays=0.1/0/0.11/0.13, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 Ok 0000014b5f678593-a0e399ef-a801-4655-ad6b-19864a220f38-000000)

Trying to change the from address with -- echo "test" | mail -s "a test" [email protected] -- [email protected]

This changes the orig-to value but not the from value: Feb 6 09:09:09 myserver postfix/qmgr[28875]: 6BD362269D: from=<[email protected]>, size=474, nrcpt=2 (queue active) Feb 6 09:09:09 myserver postfix/smtp[20505]: 6BD362269D: to=<me@noone>, orig_to=<[email protected]>, relay=myMTA[x.x.x.x]:25, delay=0.31, delays=0.06/0/0.09/0.15, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 Ok 0000014b5f6d48e2-a98b70be-fb02-44e0-8eb3-e4f5b1820265-000000)

Next trying it with a -r and a -- to adjust the from and orig-to. echo "test" | mail -s "a test" -r [email protected] [email protected] -- [email protected]

And the logs: Feb 6 09:17:11 myserver postfix/qmgr[28875]: E3B972264C: from=<[email protected]>, size=459, nrcpt=2 (queue active) Feb 6 09:17:11 myserver postfix/smtp[21559]: E3B972264C: to=<[email protected]>, orig_to=<[email protected]>, relay=myMTA[x.x.x.x]:25, delay=1.1, delays=0.56/0.24/0.11/0.17, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 Ok 0000014b5f74a2c0-c06709f0-4e8d-4d7e-9abf-dbcea2bee2ea-000000)

This is how it's working for me. Hope this helps someone.

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Feb 03 '10 at 11:01

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on CentOs5: -r [email protected]

answered Feb 03 '10 at 11:01

fun_vit

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score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 15 '14 at 21:42

echo "This is the main body of the mail" | mail -s "Subject of the Email" [email protected] -- -f [email protected] -F "Elvis Presley"

or

echo "This is the main body of the mail" | mail -s "Subject of the Email" [email protected] -aFrom:"Elvis Presley<[email protected]>"

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered May 13 '16 at 00:40

1

This works on Centos7

echo "This is the main body of the mail" | mail -s "Subject of the Email" -r [email protected] [email protected]

answered May 13 '16 at 00:40

Santiago Trias

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-r displayname – Nick Dong Feb 26 '17 at 16:10

score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Apr 21 '18 at 15:02

Here's an answer from 2018, on Debian 9 stretch.

Note the -e for echo to allow newline characters, and -r for mailx to show a name along with an outgoing email address:

$ echo -e "testing email via yourisp.com from command line\n\nsent on: $(date)" | mailx -r "Foghorn Leghorn <[email protected]>" -s "test cli email $(date)" -- [email protected]

Hope this helps!

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Aug 30 '19 at 11:18

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For CentOS here is the working command :

mail -s Subject -S [email protected] [email protected]

answered Aug 30 '19 at 11:18

Youssef ASEBRIY

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score 0 · Answer 15 · edited Sep 21 '15 at 18:43

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Thanks to all example providers, some worked for some not. Below is another simple example format that worked for me.

echo "Sample body" | mail -s "Test email" [email protected] [email protected]

edited Sep 21 '15 at 18:43

hata

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answered Sep 21 '15 at 18:36

ayon

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Specify the from user when sending email using the mail command

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