Sending Email Messages with Powershell

A lot of the scripts I use generate reports or .csv files that I need to reference or send to other users who have requested them. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to configure your script to automatically email yourself (or anyone else) with the results and/or any files that were created in your script. This saves you time by not having to manually copy the files to another location or attach them to a new email message. You can simply receive the email message and forward it on, or include all recipients in the original email sent by the script.

The following lines of code can be used to create and send an email message with Windows Powershell:


$SmtpClient = new-object system.net.mail.smtpClient 
$MailMessage = New-Object system.net.mail.mailmessage 
$SmtpClient.Host = "your.smtp.server" 
$mailmessage.from = ("fromaddress@yourdomain.com") 

$mailmessage.Subject = “Subject”
$mailmessage.Body = "body text"
$mailmessage.IsBodyHtml = $true
$mailmessage.ReplyTo = "replytoaddress@yourdomain.com"
$mailmessage.Attachments.Add("C:\Path\yourfile.txt")
$smtpclient.Send($mailmessage)
$mailmessage.dispose()

Notes:

You will need to replace the values in some of the variables above to allow it to work in your environment (ie. SmtpClient.Host, FromAddress, Subject, Body text, Reply to address, attachment path).

You will also need to ensure that whatever machine you are running this script on is "authorised" to send with the SMTP server you have configured.

The final line of code $mailmessage.dispose() is very important when sending emails with attachments. If this line is not included, Powershell 'locks' the file(s) you attached after the message has been sent and will not 'release' them until the Powershell instance you are running is closed.