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macosscriptingosx-yosemitejavascript-automation

Send email with attachment using Javascript for Automation


I would like use Javascript for Automation in OS X Yosemite to create a new email message in Mail.app and attach a file to the email. This is my code:

Mail = Application('com.apple.Mail')
message = Mail.OutgoingMessage().make()
message.visible = true
message.toRecipients.push(Mail.Recipient({ address: "[email protected]" }))
message.subject = "Test subject"
message.content = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit"

It works fine until this point. I see a new message window with the recipient, subject, and body text correctly filled in. But I can’t figure out how to add a file attachment to the message. The scripting dictionary for Mail.app indicates that the contents property (an instance of RichText) can contain attachments, but I don’t know how to add one.

I tried this but I get an error:

// This doesn't work.
attachment = Mail.Attachment({ fileName: "/Users/myname/Desktop/test.pdf" })
message.content.attachments = [ attachment ]
// Error: Can't convert types.

I found several examples on the web how to do this in AppleScript, for example this one:

tell application "Mail"
    ...
    set theAttachmentFile to "Macintosh HD:Users:moligaloo:Downloads:attachment.pdf"
    set msg to make new outgoing message with properties {subject: theSubject, content: theContent, visible:true}

    tell msg to make new attachment with properties {file name:theAttachmentFile as alias}
end tell

But I can’t figure out how to convert this to Javascript.


Solution

  • I figured out a way to do this through trial and error, you need to use message.attachments.push(attachment) instead of attachments = [...]

    Mail = Application('com.apple.Mail')
    message = Mail.OutgoingMessage().make()
    message.visible = true
    message.toRecipients.push(Mail.Recipient({ address: "[email protected]" }))
    message.subject = "Testing JXA"
    message.content = "Foo bar baz"
    
    attachment = Mail.Attachment({ fileName: "/Users/myname/Desktop/test.pdf" })
    message.attachments.push(attachment)