minimailer 0.0.1

Send automated emails using a CSV datafile and a template

Minimailer

Minimailer is a small script to send automated emails.

It's feeded from a template file and from a CSV data file, sending one email per CSV row after applying substitutions according to template rules that matches the data columns.

Dependencies

Minimailer has minimal dependencies:

• Python 3.
• A sendmail-compatible program (defaults to msmtp).

It was successfully tested in Debian but should run in other systems without problems.

Installation

Minimailer can live anywhere in your $PATH or run directly from the repository.

Basic usage

Minimailer only needs two parameters, the template and the data filenames:

minimailer message.tmpl data.csv

CSV file format

• Minimailer uses the first row in the CSV file as field names.
• All other rows are considered as data.
• There are no constraints about which or how many fields can be used.
• The only requirement is that one of those fields should be used as the email address source.
• By default, the field named email is used for email addresses, and can be overriden by the --recipient-field-address option.

Template file format

Minimailer relies in Python 3's str.format() syntax, meaning that any text file can be used as long as:

1. Template variables are enclosed in curly braces like {this}.
2. It implements a valid email message, i.e, it's compatible if the format specified by RFC 2822.

Advanced usage

Minimailer also comes with optional parameters allowing things such as handling email addresses in a custom contact field as indicated above:

minimailer message.tmpl data.csv --recipient-field-address 'contact'

Or using a custom sendmail invocation (in this case, msmtp with the account name my-account):

minimailer message.tmpl data.csv --sendmail-command 'msmtp -a my-account'

Check minimailer --help for details and more invocation options.

Examples

Check the following files for examples in how to structure your template file and data source:

• Data source example.
• Email template example.