Steve's blog

I keep on seeing people sending messages saying "see attached file" or similar in their emails, but then forgetting to actually attach the file. I used to do it myself lots, but then with the help of some ideas I found on the net I wrote the following script to use with mutt. To use it, use the setting "set sendmail=" to point at it.

#!/bin/bash
#
# mutt-sendmail
# helper script to reduce embarrassment with mutt :-)
#
# Copyright 2011 Steve McIntyre 
# GPL v2

###
# save msg in file to re-use it for multiple tests
###
TMPFILE=`mktemp -p ~/tmp -t mutt.XXXXXX` || exit 2
cat > $TMPFILE

## Attachment keywords that the message body will be searched for:
KEYWORDS='attach|patch'

## Define test for multipart message.
function multipart {
    grep -q '^Content-Type: multipart' "$TMPFILE"
}

## Define test for keyword search.
function word-attach {
    grep -v '^>' "$TMPFILE" | grep -v "^X-attached:" | grep -E -i -q "$KEYWORDS"
}

## Header override.
function header-override {
    grep -i -E "^X-attached: *none *$" "$TMPFILE"
}

###
# FINAL DECISION:
# chain series of functions, use ! || && for logic connections,
###
if multipart || ! word-attach || header-override; then
    formail -I bcc < $TMPFILE | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oem "$@"
    status=$?
else
    echo "No file was attached but a search of the message text suggests there"
    echo "should be one.  Add a header \"X-attached: none\" to override this"
    echo "check if no attachment is intended."
    status=1
fi
rm -f $TMPFILE
exit $status

15:31 :: # :: /debian/mutt :: 6 comments

Comments

Re: Re: How to not embarrass yourself with missing attachments in mutt
Steve wrote on Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:01

(replying here and by mail, for convenience)

When sending the message fails, re-edit and add that as a header. To make it more obvious, I also add:

my_hdr X-attached: unknown

into my .muttrc so there's a header field there waiting for me to use

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