Write an email with attachment with Mail.app from terminal

Question

I would like to start writing an email with Mail.app from Terminal, and add an attachment. Something like this:

macbook:~ me$ /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail -s the_subject -to email@domain.com < ~/Downloads/file.zip

Answer 1

You can do this using AppleScript. Here's a quick (quickly tested) bash script which is close to what you want.

#!/bin/bash
echo "tell application \"Mail\"
    activate

    set MyEmail to make new outgoing message with properties {visible:true, subject:\"$2\", content:\"Some Message Here\"}
    tell MyEmail
        make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:\"$1\"}
        make new attachment with properties {file name:((\"$3\" as POSIX file) as alias)}
    end tell
end tell
" | osascript

Usage: compose_email 'email@domain.com' 'Some Subject' /path/to/attachment.zip