GIT-IMAP-SEND(1)

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version 2.56.0 · 25 versions
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💌 GIT-IMAP-SEND(1) — the git-imap-send manual, but make it group-chat 💌

okay bestie, welcome to the Git manual page for git-imap-send(1) 💖 this is the tiny Git tool that sends a whole pile of patches from stdin straight into an IMAP folder, and honestly? it’s giving “email client but make it terminal.” Let’s get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

git-imap-send — Send a collection of patches from stdin to an IMAP folder. That’s the name, that’s the vibe, no cap 💅

💅 SYNOPSIS 💅

git imap-send [-v] [-q] [--[no-]curl] [--[no-]draft] [(--folder|-f) <folder>]
git imap-send --list

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

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

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -v, --verbose — Be verbose. More chatty output, bestie ✨
  • -q, --quiet — Be quiet. Less noise, more chill 💜
  • -f <folder>, --folder=<folder> — Specify the folder in which the emails have to saved. For example: --folder=[Gmail]/Drafts or -f INBOX/Drafts. Very “put it in this exact drawer” energy.
  • --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. 🫶
  • --draft, --no-draft — Mark uploaded messages with the IMAP \Draft flag. The default is --no-draft.

With libcurl, --draft requires version 8.13.0 or later. Older libcurl still uploads the message but cannot set the flag. Noted, bestie — older libcurl can still send it, but it can’t do the little draft flag moment.

  • --list — Run the IMAP LIST command to output a list of all the folders present. 📋

🦋 CONFIGURATION 🦋

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. 💅

🧚 GETTING A LIST OF AVAILABLE FOLDERS 🧚

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. FolderName detective era, honestly.

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

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.

💀 CAUTION 💀

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

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

👑 GIT 👑

Part of the git(1) suite.

💖 that’s the whole manual, bestie — source/version: Git 2.56.0, date: 2026-09-27, manual: GIT-IMAP-SEND(1) — mwah, slay, periodt 💅✨

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