Sending and changing mail

These commands change your mailbox. Each one acts on one message, draft or folder, and each prints what it did.

Try it on a test mailbox first

Changes happen on your mail server immediately and sync to your other devices. Deletes can't be undone. If you're scripting changes, run them against a throwaway mailbox before your real one.

Video coming soon

Doing tasks with fob-email: file invoices, download attachments, send a report (3–4 min)

Mark, move and delete#

fob-email emails mark 1423 --read            # or --unread
fob-email emails move 1423 --to Invoices/2026
fob-email emails delete 1423 --yes

Pass --folder if the message isn't in INBOX: IDs belong to a folder. See Message IDs.
move gives the message a new ID in the destination folder.
delete removes the message permanently, without moving it to Trash first. To keep a copy, move it to your Trash folder instead (fob-email folders list shows its name).
Gmail applies its own rule to IMAP deletes, set under Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP. With the default, a message deleted from INBOX is archived rather than erased.

Send an email#

Sending needs the account's SMTP server (Connect a mailbox). Without one, send stops with an error saying so.

fob-email emails send \
  --to [email protected] --cc [email protected] \
  --subject "September vendor invoices" \
  --body-file summary.txt \
  --attach invoices/INV-2291.pdf --attach invoices/INV-2304.pdf

--to, --cc, --bcc and --attach can each be repeated.
The body is plain text, from --body or --body-file (not both).
The message is sent from the account's SMTP username (the IMAP username, unless you set --smtp-user).
fob-email doesn't add a copy to your Sent folder. Gmail adds one automatically; other providers may not.
If the server refuses some recipients, they're listed on stderr under Rejected:. The rest are sent.

There's no reply or forward command yet, so a message sent with send starts a new conversation.

Drafts#

fob-email drafts create --to [email protected] --subject "Q3 close" --body "Draft notes…"
fob-email drafts list
fob-email drafts edit 88 --to [email protected] --subject "Q3 close (v2)" --body-file notes.txt
fob-email drafts send 88
fob-email drafts delete 88 --yes

Drafts take the same options as emails send. They're saved in your provider's Drafts folder (for Gmail, [Gmail]/Drafts) with the IMAP draft flag, so your mail app shows them like any other draft.
edit replaces the whole draft, so pass every field again, including --to. The draft gets a new ID, which edit prints.
send sends the draft as saved, then removes it from Drafts.

Before 0.2.0, drafts always used a folder named exactly Drafts, which fails on Gmail. Update with npm install -g @finopsbricks/fob-email@latest.

Folders#

fob-email folders create Invoices/2026
fob-email folders rename Invoices/2026 --to Archive/Invoices-2026
fob-email folders delete Archive/Invoices-2026 --yes

Use / to nest folders. A few servers use . instead; folders list shows how yours names nested folders.
rename can also move a folder under a new parent.
Deleting a folder deletes the messages in it. On Gmail, folders are labels: deleting one removes the label, and the messages stay in All Mail.