|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|
|
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CONFIGURATION | GETTING A LIST OF AVAILABLE FOLDERS | EXAMPLES | CAUTION | SEE ALSO | GIT | COLOPHON |
|
|
|
GIT-IMAP-SEND(1) Git Manual GIT-IMAP-SEND(1)
git-imap-send - Send a collection of patches from stdin to an IMAP
folder
git imap-send [-v] [-q] [--[no-]curl] [(--folder|-f) <folder>]
git imap-send --list
This command uploads a mailbox generated with git format-patch
into an IMAP drafts folder. This allows patches to be sent as
other email is when using mail clients that cannot read mailbox
files directly. The command also works with any general mailbox in
which emails have the fields From, Date, and Subject in that
order.
Typical usage is something like:
$ git format-patch --signoff --stdout --attach origin | git imap-send
-v, --verbose
Be verbose.
-q, --quiet
Be quiet.
-f <folder>, --folder=<folder>
Specify the folder in which the emails have to saved. For
example: --folder=[Gmail]/Drafts or -f INBOX/Drafts.
--curl
Use libcurl to communicate with the IMAP server, unless
tunneling into it. Ignored if Git was built without the
USE_CURL_FOR_IMAP_SEND option set.
--no-curl
Talk to the IMAP server using git’s own IMAP routines instead
of using libcurl. Ignored if Git was built with the NO_OPENSSL
option set.
--list
Run the IMAP LIST command to output a list of all the folders
present.
To use the tool, imap.folder and either imap.tunnel or imap.host
must be set to appropriate values.
Everything above this line in this section isn’t included from the
git-config(1) documentation. The content that follows is the same
as what’s found there:
imap.folder
The folder to drop the mails into, which is typically the
Drafts folder. For example: INBOX.Drafts, INBOX/Drafts or
[Gmail]/Drafts. The IMAP folder to interact with MUST be
specified; the value of this configuration variable is used as
the fallback default value when the --folder option is not
given.
imap.tunnel
Command used to set up a tunnel to the IMAP server through
which commands will be piped instead of using a direct network
connection to the server. Required when imap.host is not set.
imap.host
A URL identifying the server. Use an imap:// prefix for
non-secure connections and an imaps:// prefix for secure
connections. Ignored when imap.tunnel is set, but required
otherwise.
imap.user
The username to use when logging in to the server.
imap.pass
The password to use when logging in to the server.
imap.port
An integer port number to connect to on the server. Defaults
to 143 for imap:// hosts and 993 for imaps:// hosts. Ignored
when imap.tunnel is set.
imap.sslverify
A boolean to enable/disable verification of the server
certificate used by the SSL/TLS connection. Default is true.
Ignored when imap.tunnel is set.
imap.preformattedHTML
A boolean to enable/disable the use of html encoding when
sending a patch. An html encoded patch will be bracketed with
<pre> and have a content type of text/html. Ironically,
enabling this option causes Thunderbird to send the patch as a
plain/text, format=fixed email. Default is false.
imap.authMethod
Specify the authentication method for authenticating with the
IMAP server. If Git was built with the NO_CURL option, or if
your curl version is older than 7.34.0, or if you’re running
git-imap-send with the --no-curl option, the only supported
methods are PLAIN, CRAM-MD5, OAUTHBEARER and XOAUTH2. If this
is not set then git imap-send uses the basic IMAP plaintext
LOGIN command.
In order to send an email to a specific folder, you need to know
the correct name of intended folder in your mailbox. The names
like "Junk", "Trash" etc. displayed by various email clients need
not be the actual names of the folders stored in the mail server
of your email provider.
In order to get the correct folder name to be used with git
imap-send, you can run git imap-send --list. This will display a
list of valid folder names. An example of such an output when run
on a Gmail account is:
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "/" "INBOX"
* LIST (\HasChildren \Noselect) "/" "[Gmail]"
* LIST (\All \HasNoChildren) "/" "[Gmail]/All Mail"
* LIST (\Drafts \HasNoChildren) "/" "[Gmail]/Drafts"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Important) "/" "[Gmail]/Important"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Sent) "/" "[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Junk) "/" "[Gmail]/Spam"
* LIST (\Flagged \HasNoChildren) "/" "[Gmail]/Starred"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren \Trash) "/" "[Gmail]/Trash"
Here, you can observe that the correct name for the "Junk" folder
is [Gmail]/Spam and for the "Trash" folder is [Gmail]/Trash.
Similar logic can be used to determine other folders as well.
Using tunnel mode:
[imap]
folder = "INBOX.Drafts"
tunnel = "ssh -q -C user@example.com /usr/bin/imapd ./Maildir 2> /dev/null"
Using direct mode:
[imap]
folder = "INBOX.Drafts"
host = imap://imap.example.com
user = bob
pass = p4ssw0rd
Using direct mode with SSL:
[imap]
folder = "INBOX.Drafts"
host = imaps://imap.example.com
user = bob
pass = p4ssw0rd
port = 123
; sslVerify = false
Note
You may want to use sslVerify=false while troubleshooting, if
you suspect that the reason you are having trouble connecting
is because the certificate you use at the private server
example.com you are trying to set up (or have set up) may not
be verified correctly.
Using Gmail’s IMAP interface:
[imap]
folder = "[Gmail]/Drafts"
host = imaps://imap.gmail.com
user = user@gmail.com
port = 993
Gmail does not allow using your regular password for git
imap-send. If you have multi-factor authentication set up on your
Gmail account, you can generate an app-specific password for use
with git imap-send. Visit
https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords to
create it. Alternatively, use OAuth2.0 authentication as described
below.
Note
You might need to instead use: folder = "[Google Mail]/Drafts"
if you get an error that the "Folder doesn’t exist". You can
also run git imap-send --list to get a list of available
folders.
Note
If your Gmail account is set to another language than English,
the name of the "Drafts" folder will be localized.
If you want to use OAuth2.0 based authentication, you can specify
OAUTHBEARER or XOAUTH2 mechanism in your config. It is more secure
than using app-specific passwords, and also does not enforce the
need of having multi-factor authentication. You will have to use
an OAuth2.0 access token in place of your password when using this
authentication.
[imap]
folder = "[Gmail]/Drafts"
host = imaps://imap.gmail.com
user = user@gmail.com
port = 993
authmethod = OAUTHBEARER
Using Outlook’s IMAP interface:
Unlike Gmail, Outlook only supports OAuth2.0 based authentication.
Also, it supports only XOAUTH2 as the mechanism.
[imap]
folder = "Drafts"
host = imaps://outlook.office365.com
user = user@outlook.com
port = 993
authmethod = XOAUTH2
Once the commits are ready to be sent, run the following command:
$ git format-patch --cover-letter -M --stdout origin/master | git imap-send
Just make sure to disable line wrapping in the email client
(Gmail’s web interface will wrap lines no matter what, so you need
to use a real IMAP client).
In case you are using OAuth2.0 authentication, it is easier to use
credential helpers to generate tokens. Credential helpers
suggested in git-send-email(1) can be used for git imap-send as
well.
It is still your responsibility to make sure that the email
message sent by your email program meets the standards of your
project. Many projects do not like patches to be attached. Some
mail agents will transform patches (e.g. wrap lines, send them as
format=flowed) in ways that make them fail. You will get angry
flames ridiculing you if you don’t check this.
Thunderbird in particular is known to be problematic. Thunderbird
users may wish to visit this web page for more information:
https://kb.mozillazine.org/Plain_text_e-mail_-_Thunderbird#Completely_plain_email
git-format-patch(1), git-send-email(1), mbox(5)
Part of the git(1) suite
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-IMAP-SEND(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-format-patch(1), git-send-email(1)
|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|