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.

--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 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=<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>
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=<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.

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

--smtp-server=<host>
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=<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=<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=<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=<num>
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 $<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
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=<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.

--[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.

--[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=<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-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=<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.

--[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:

+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.<identity>.*
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

+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.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

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 = yourname@gmail.com
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

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

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-SEND-EMAIL(1)