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https://github.com/mikel/mail

A Really Ruby Mail Library
https://github.com/mikel/mail

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A Really Ruby Mail Library

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README 

        
# Mail [![Build Status](https://github.com/mikel/mail/actions/workflows/test.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/mikel/mail/actions/workflows/test.yml)



## Introduction



Mail is an internet library for Ruby that is designed to handle email

generation, parsing and sending in a simple, rubyesque manner.



The purpose of this library is to provide a single point of access to handle

all email functions, including sending and receiving email.  All network

type actions are done through proxy methods to Net::SMTP, Net::POP3 etc.



Built from my experience with TMail, it is designed to be a pure ruby

implementation that makes generating, sending and parsing email a no

brainer.



It is also designed from the ground up to work with the more modern versions

of Ruby.  Modern Rubies handle text encodings much more wonderfully than before

so these features have been taken full advantage of in this library allowing

Mail to handle a lot more messages more cleanly than TMail.



Finally, Mail has been designed with a very simple object oriented system

that really opens up the email messages you are parsing, if you know what

you are doing, you can fiddle with every last bit of your email directly.



## You can contribute to this library



Yes, you! Mail is used in countless apps by people around the world. It is,

like all open source software, a labour of love borne from our free time.

If you would like to say thanks, please dig in and contribute alongside us!

Triage and fix [GitHub issues](https://github.com/mikel/mail/issues), improve

our documentation, add new features—up to you! Thank you for pitching in.



# Contents

* [Compatibility](#compatibility)

* [Discussion](#discussion)

* [Current Capabilities of Mail](#current-capabilities-of-mail)

* [Roadmap](#roadmap)

* [Testing Policy](#testing-policy)

* [API Policy](#api-policy)

* [Installation](#installation)

* [Encodings](#encodings)

* [Contributing](#contributing)

* [Usage](#usage)

* [Excerpts from TREC Spam Corpus 2005](#excerpts-from-trec-spam-corpus-2005)

* [License](#license)



## Compatibility



Mail is tested against:



* Ruby: 2.5

* Ruby: 2.6

* Ruby: 2.7

* Ruby: 3.0

* Ruby: 3.1

* Ruby: 3.2

* JRuby: 9.2

* JRuby: 9.3

* JRuby: 9.4

* JRuby: stable

* JRuby: head

* Truffleruby: stable

* Truffleruby: head



As new versions of Ruby are released, Mail will be compatible with support for the "preview" and all "normal maintenance", "security maintenance" and the two most recent "end of life" versions listed at the [Ruby Maintenance Branches](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/branches/) page.  Pull requests to assist in adding support for new preview releases are more than welcome.



Every Mail commit is tested by GitHub Actions on [all supported Ruby versions](https://github.com/mikel/mail/blob/master/.github/workflows/test.yml).



## Discussion



If you want to discuss mail with like minded individuals, please subscribe to

the [Google Group](http://groups.google.com/group/mail-ruby).



## Current Capabilities of Mail



* RFC5322 Support, Reading and Writing

* RFC6532 Support, reading UTF-8 headers

* RFC2045-2049 Support for multipart email

* Support for creating multipart alternate email

* Support for reading multipart/report email & getting details from such

* Wrappers for File, Net/POP3, Net/SMTP

* Auto-encoding of non-US-ASCII bodies and header fields



Mail is RFC5322 and RFC6532 compliant now, that is, it can parse US-ASCII and UTF-8

email and generate US-ASCII email. There are a few obsoleted email syntax that

it will have problems with, but it also is quite robust, meaning, if it finds something

it doesn't understand it will not crash, instead, it will skip the problem and keep

parsing. In the case of a header it doesn't understand, it will initialise the header

as an optional unstructured field and continue parsing.



This means Mail won't (ever) crunch your data (I think).



You can also create MIME emails.  There are helper methods for making a

multipart/alternate email for text/plain and text/html (the most common pair)

and you can manually create any other type of MIME email.



## Roadmap



Next TODO:



* Improve MIME support for character sets in headers, currently works, mostly, needs

  refinement.



## Testing Policy



Basically... we do BDD on Mail.  No method gets written in Mail without a

corresponding or covering spec.  We expect as a minimum 100% coverage

measured by RCov.  While this is not perfect by any measure, it is pretty

good.  Additionally, all functional tests from TMail are to be passing before

the gem gets released.



It also means you can be sure Mail will behave correctly.



You can run tests locally by running `bundle exec rspec`.



You can run tests on all supported Ruby versions by using [act](https://github.com/nektos/act).



## API Policy



No API removals within a single point release.  All removals to be deprecated with

warnings for at least one MINOR point release before removal.



Also, all private or protected methods to be declared as such - though this is still I/P.



## Installation



Installation is fairly simple, I host mail on rubygems, so you can just do:



    # gem install mail



## Encodings



If you didn't know, handling encodings in Emails is not as straight forward as you

would hope.



I have tried to simplify it some:



1. All objects that can render into an email, have an `#encoded` method.  Encoded will

   return the object as a complete string ready to send in the mail system, that is,

   it will include the header field and value and CRLF at the end and wrapped as

   needed.



2. All objects that can render into an email, have a `#decoded` method.  Decoded will

   return the object's "value" only as a string.  This means it will not include

   the header fields (like 'To:' or 'Subject:').



3. By default, calling #to_s on a container object will call its encoded

   method, while #to_s on a field object will call its decoded method.

   So calling #to_s on a Mail object will return the mail, all encoded

   ready to send, while calling #to_s on the From field or the body will

   return the decoded value of the object. The header object of Mail is considered a

   container. If you are in doubt, call #encoded, or #decoded

   explicitly, this is safer if you are not sure.



4. Structured fields that have parameter values that can be encoded (e.g. Content-Type) will

   provide decoded parameter values when you call the parameter names as methods against

   the object.



5. Structured fields that have parameter values that can be encoded (e.g. Content-Type) will

   provide encoded parameter values when you call the parameter names through the

   object.parameters[''] method call.



## Contributing



Please do!  Contributing is easy in Mail.  Please read the [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) document for more info.



## Usage



All major mail functions should be able to happen from the Mail module.

So, you should be able to just require 'mail' to get started.



`mail` is pretty well documented in its Ruby code.  You can look it up e.g. at [rubydoc.info](https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/mail).



### Making an email



```ruby

mail = Mail.new do

  from    '[email protected]'

  to      '[email protected]'

  subject 'This is a test email'

  body    File.read('body.txt')

end



mail.to_s #=> "From: [email protected]\r\nTo: you@...

```



### Making an email, have it your way:



```ruby

mail = Mail.new do

  body File.read('body.txt')

end



mail['from'] = '[email protected]'

mail[:to]    = '[email protected]'

mail.subject = 'This is a test email'



mail.header['X-Custom-Header'] = 'custom value'



mail.to_s #=> "From: [email protected]\r\nTo: you@...

```



### Don't Worry About Message IDs:



```ruby

mail = Mail.new do

  to   '[email protected]'

  body 'Some simple body'

end



mail.to_s =~ /Message\-ID: <[\d\w_]+@.+.mail/ #=> 27

```



Mail will automatically add a Message-ID field if it is missing and

give it a unique, random Message-ID along the lines of:



    <[email protected]>



### Or do worry about Message-IDs:



```ruby

mail = Mail.new do

  to         '[email protected]'

  message_id ''

  body       'Some simple body'

end



mail.to_s =~ /Message\-ID: / #=> 27

```



Mail will take the message_id you assign to it trusting that you know

what you are doing.



### Sending an email:



Mail defaults to sending via SMTP to local host port 25.  If you have a

sendmail or postfix daemon running on this port, sending email is as

easy as:



```ruby

Mail.deliver do

  from     '[email protected]'

  to       '[email protected]'

  subject  'Here is the image you wanted'

  body     File.read('body.txt')

  add_file '/full/path/to/somefile.png'

end

```



or



```ruby

mail = Mail.new do

  from     '[email protected]'

  to       '[email protected]'

  subject  'Here is the image you wanted'

  body     File.read('body.txt')

  add_file :filename => 'somefile.png', :content => File.read('/somefile.png')

end



mail.deliver!

```



Sending via sendmail can be done like so:



```ruby

mail = Mail.new do

  from     '[email protected]'

  to       '[email protected]'

  subject  'Here is the image you wanted'

  body     File.read('body.txt')

  add_file :filename => 'somefile.png', :content => File.read('/somefile.png')

end



mail.delivery_method :sendmail



mail.deliver

```



Sending via smtp (for example to [mailcatcher](https://github.com/sj26/mailcatcher))

```ruby



Mail.defaults do

  delivery_method :smtp, address: "localhost", port: 1025

end

```



Exim requires its own delivery manager, and can be used like so:



```ruby

mail.delivery_method :exim, :location => "/usr/bin/exim"



mail.deliver

```



Mail may be "delivered" to a logfile, too, for development and testing:



```ruby

# Delivers by logging the encoded message to $stdout

mail.delivery_method :logger



# Delivers to an existing logger at :debug severity

mail.delivery_method :logger, logger: other_logger, severity: :debug

```



### Getting Emails from a POP or IMAP Server:



You can configure Mail to receive email using retriever_method

within Mail.defaults:



```ruby

# e.g. POP3

Mail.defaults do

  retriever_method :pop3, :address    => "pop.gmail.com",

                          :port       => 995,

                          :user_name  => '',

                          :password   => '',

                          :enable_ssl => true

end



# IMAP

Mail.defaults do

  retriever_method :imap, :address    => "imap.mailbox.org",

                          :port       => 993,

                          :user_name  => '',

                          :password   => '',

                          :enable_ssl => true

end

```



You can access incoming email in a number of ways.



The most recent email:



```ruby

Mail.all    #=> Returns an array of all emails

Mail.first  #=> Returns the first unread email

Mail.last   #=> Returns the last unread email

```



The first 10 emails sorted by date in ascending order:



```ruby

emails = Mail.find(:what => :first, :count => 10, :order => :asc)

emails.length #=> 10

```



Or even all emails:



```ruby

emails = Mail.all

emails.length #=> LOTS!

```



### Reading an Email



```ruby

mail = Mail.read('/path/to/message.eml')



mail.envelope_from   #=> '[email protected]'

mail.from.addresses  #=> ['[email protected]', '[email protected]']

mail.sender.address  #=> '[email protected]'

mail.to              #=> '[email protected]'

mail.cc              #=> '[email protected]'

mail.subject         #=> "This is the subject"

mail.date.to_s       #=> '21 Nov 1997 09:55:06 -0600'

mail.message_id      #=> '<[email protected]>'

mail.decoded         #=> 'This is the body of the email...

```



Many more methods available.



### Reading a Multipart Email



```ruby

mail = Mail.read('multipart_email')



mail.multipart?          #=> true

mail.parts.length        #=> 2

mail.body.preamble       #=> "Text before the first part"

mail.body.epilogue       #=> "Text after the last part"

mail.parts.map { |p| p.content_type }  #=> ['text/plain', 'application/pdf']

mail.parts.map { |p| p.class }         #=> [Mail::Message, Mail::Message]

mail.parts[0].content_type_parameters  #=> {'charset' => 'ISO-8859-1'}

mail.parts[1].content_type_parameters  #=> {'name' => 'my.pdf'}

```



Mail generates a tree of parts.  Each message has many or no parts.  Each part

is another message which can have many or no parts.



A message will only have parts if it is a multipart/mixed or multipart/related

content type and has a boundary defined.



### Testing and Extracting Attachments

```ruby

mail.attachments.each do | attachment |

  # Attachments is an AttachmentsList object containing a

  # number of Part objects

  if (attachment.content_type.start_with?('image/'))

    # extracting images for example...

    filename = attachment.filename

    begin

      File.open(images_dir + filename, "w+b", 0644) {|f| f.write attachment.decoded}

    rescue => e

      puts "Unable to save data for #{filename} because #{e.message}"

    end

  end

end

```

### Writing and Sending a Multipart/Alternative (HTML and Text) Email



Mail makes some basic assumptions and makes doing the common thing as

simple as possible.... (asking a lot from a mail library)



```ruby

mail = Mail.deliver do

  part :content_type => "multipart/mixed" do |p1|

    p1.part :content_type => "multipart/related" do |p2|

      p2.part :content_type => "multipart/alternative",

              :content_disposition => "inline" do |p3|

        p3.part :content_type => "text/plain; charset=utf-8",

                :body => "Here is the attachment you wanted\n"

        p3.part :content_type => "text/html; charset=utf-8",

                :body => "
Funky Title
Here is the attachment you wanted
\n"

      end

    end

    add_file '/path/to/myfile.pdf'

  end

  from      "Mikel Lindsaar "

  to        "[email protected]"

  subject   "First multipart email sent with Mail"

end

```



Mail then delivers the email at the end of the block and returns the

resulting Mail::Message object, which you can then inspect if you

so desire...



```

puts mail.to_s #=>



Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 20:12:07 +0200

From: Mikel Lindsaar 

To: [email protected]

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

Subject: First multipart email sent with Mail

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/mixed;

 boundary=\"--==_mimepart_626835f733867_10873fdfa3c2ffd494636\";

 charset=UTF-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



----==_mimepart_626835f733867_10873fdfa3c2ffd494636

Content-Type: multipart/mixed;

 boundary=\"--==_mimepart_626835f73382a_10873fdfa3c2ffd494518\";

 charset=UTF-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



----==_mimepart_626835f73382a_10873fdfa3c2ffd494518

Content-Type: multipart/related;

 boundary=\"--==_mimepart_626835f7337f5_10873fdfa3c2ffd494438\";

 charset=UTF-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



----==_mimepart_626835f7337f5_10873fdfa3c2ffd494438

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

 boundary=\"--==_mimepart_626835f733702_10873fdfa3c2ffd494376\";

 charset=UTF-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Content-Disposition: inline

Content-ID: <[email protected]>



----==_mimepart_626835f733702_10873fdfa3c2ffd494376

Content-Type: text/plain;

 charset=utf-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



Here is the attachment you wanted



----==_mimepart_626835f733702_10873fdfa3c2ffd494376

Content-Type: text/html;

 charset=utf-8

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



Funky Title
Here is the attachment you wanted



----==_mimepart_626835f733702_10873fdfa3c2ffd494376--



----==_mimepart_626835f7337f5_10873fdfa3c2ffd494438--



----==_mimepart_626835f73382a_10873fdfa3c2ffd494518--



----==_mimepart_626835f733867_10873fdfa3c2ffd494636

Content-Type: text/plain;

 charset=UTF-8;

 filename=myfile.txt

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Content-Disposition: attachment;

 filename=myfile.txt

Content-ID: <6

[email protected]>



Hallo,

Test

End



----==_mimepart_626835f733867_10873fdfa3c2ffd494636--

```



Mail inserts the content transfer encoding, the mime version,

the content-IDs and handles the content-type and boundary.



Mail assumes that if your text in the body is only us-ascii, that your

transfer encoding is 7bit and it is text/plain.  You can override this

by explicitly declaring it.



### Making Multipart/Alternate, Without a Block



You don't have to use a block with the text and html part included, you

can just do it declaratively.  However, you need to add Mail::Parts to

an email, not Mail::Messages.



```ruby

mail = Mail.new do

  to      '[email protected]'

  from    'Mikel Lindsaar '

  subject 'First multipart email sent with Mail'

end



text_part = Mail::Part.new do

  body 'This is plain text'

end



html_part = Mail::Part.new do

  content_type 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'

  body '
This is HTML
'

end



mail.text_part = text_part

mail.html_part = html_part

```



Results in the same email as done using the block form



### Getting Error Reports from an Email:



```ruby

@mail = Mail.read('/path/to/bounce_message.eml')



@mail.bounced?         #=> true

@mail.final_recipient  #=> rfc822;[email protected]

@mail.action           #=> failed

@mail.error_status     #=> 5.5.0

@mail.diagnostic_code  #=> smtp;550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable

@mail.retryable?       #=> false

```



### Attaching and Detaching Files



You can just read the file off an absolute path, Mail will try

to guess the mime_type and will encode the file in Base64 for you.



```ruby

@mail = Mail.new

@mail.add_file("/path/to/file.jpg")

@mail.parts.first.attachment? #=> true

@mail.parts.first.content_transfer_encoding.to_s #=> 'base64'

@mail.attachments.first.mime_type #=> 'image/jpg'

@mail.attachments.first.filename #=> 'file.jpg'

@mail.attachments.first.decoded == File.read('/path/to/file.jpg') #=> true

```



Or You can pass in file_data and give it a filename, again, mail

will try and guess the mime_type for you.



```ruby

@mail = Mail.new

@mail.attachments['myfile.pdf'] = File.read('path/to/myfile.pdf')

@mail.parts.first.attachment? #=> true

@mail.attachments.first.mime_type #=> 'application/pdf'

@mail.attachments.first.decoded == File.read('path/to/myfile.pdf') #=> true

```



You can also override the guessed MIME media type if you really know better

than mail (this should be rarely needed)



```ruby

@mail = Mail.new

@mail.attachments['myfile.pdf'] = { :mime_type => 'application/x-pdf',

                                    :content => File.read('path/to/myfile.pdf') }

@mail.parts.first.mime_type #=> 'application/x-pdf'

```



Of course... Mail will round trip an attachment as well



```ruby

@mail = Mail.new do

  to      '[email protected]'

  from    'Mikel Lindsaar '

  subject 'First multipart email sent with Mail'



  text_part do

    body 'Here is the attachment you wanted'

  end



  html_part do

    content_type 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'

    body '
Funky Title
Here is the attachment you wanted
'

  end



  add_file '/path/to/myfile.pdf'

end



@round_tripped_mail = Mail.new(@mail.encoded)



@round_tripped_mail.attachments.length #=> 1

@round_tripped_mail.attachments.first.filename #=> 'myfile.pdf'

```

See "Testing and extracting attachments" above for more details.



## Using Mail with Testing or Spec'ing Libraries



If mail is part of your system, you'll need a way to test it without actually

sending emails, the TestMailer can do this for you.



```ruby

require 'mail'

=> true

Mail.defaults do

  delivery_method :test

end

=> #

Mail::TestMailer.deliveries

=> []

Mail.deliver do

  to '[email protected]'

  from '[email protected]'

  subject 'testing'

  body 'hello'

end

=> # 1

Mail::TestMailer.deliveries.first

=> # []

```



There is also a set of RSpec matchers stolen/inspired by Shoulda's ActionMailer matchers (you'll want to set delivery_method as above too):



```ruby

Mail.defaults do

  delivery_method :test # in practice you'd do this in spec_helper.rb

end



RSpec.describe "sending an email" do

  include Mail::Matchers



  before(:each) do

    Mail::TestMailer.deliveries.clear



    Mail.deliver do

      to ['[email protected]', '[email protected]']

      from '[email protected]'

      subject 'testing'

      body 'hello'

    end

  end



  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email } # passes if any email at all was sent



  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.from('[email protected]') }

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.to('[email protected]') }



  # can specify a list of recipients...

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.to(['[email protected]', '[email protected]']) }



  # ...or chain recipients together

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.to('[email protected]').to('[email protected]') }



  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_subject('testing') }



  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_body('hello') }



  # Can match subject or body with a regex

  # (or anything that responds_to? :match)



  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.matching_subject(/test(ing)?/) }

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.matching_body(/h(a|e)llo/) }



  # Can chain together modifiers

  # Note that apart from recipients, repeating a modifier overwrites old value.



  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.from('[email protected]').to('[email protected]').matching_body(/hell/)



  # test for attachments



  # ... by specific attachment

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_attachments(my_attachment) }



  # ... or any attachment

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_attachments(any_attachment) }



  # ... or attachment with filename

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_attachments(an_attachment_with_filename('file.txt')) }



  # ... or attachment with mime_type

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_attachments(an_attachment_with_mime_type('application/pdf')) }



  # ... by array of attachments

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_attachments([my_attachment1, my_attachment2]) } #note that order is important



  #... by presence

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_any_attachments }



  #... or by absence

  it { is_expected.to have_sent_email.with_no_attachments }



end

```



## Excerpts from TREC Spam Corpus 2005



The spec fixture files in spec/fixtures/emails/from_trec_2005 are from the

2005 TREC Public Spam Corpus. They remain copyrighted under the terms of

that project and license agreement. They are used in this project to verify

and describe the development of this email parser implementation.



http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~gvcormac/treccorpus/



They are used as allowed by 'Permitted Uses, Clause 3':



    "Small excerpts of the information may be displayed to others

     or published in a scientific or technical context, solely for

     the purpose of describing the research and development and

     related issues."



     -- http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~gvcormac/treccorpus/



## License



(The MIT License)



Copyright (c) 2009-2016 Mikel Lindsaar



Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining

a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the

'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including

without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,

distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to

permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to

the following conditions:



The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be

included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.



THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,

EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF

MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY

CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,

TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE

SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.