Can I send e-mail through MATLAB using Microsoft Outlook?

I want to send e-mail through MATLAB, but the SENDMAIL command does not save the outgoing message for future reference. I would like to send mail through MS Outlook so that I may reference it later.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The ActiveX/COM interface can be used to control MS Outlook from MATLAB and send e-mails while using all the features available in MS Outlook. The function below is an example of how this can be done. Note that this function works almost the same as SENDMAIL.

 

function sendolmail(to,subject,body,attachments)
%Sends email using MS Outlook. The format of the function is 
%Similar to the SENDMAIL command.

% Create object and set parameters.
h = actxserver('outlook.Application');
mail = h.CreateItem('olMail');
mail.Subject = subject;
mail.To = to;
mail.BodyFormat = 'olFormatHTML';
mail.HTMLBody = body;

% Add attachments, if specified.
if nargin == 4
    for i = 1:length(attachments)
        mail.attachments.Add(attachments{i});
    end
end

% Send message and release object.
mail.Send;
h.release;

Examples of how to use this function would be the following:

The first will example includes a link, the second a picture.

 sendolmail('[e-mail]','Test link','Test message including a <A HREF=<http://www.mathworks.com>>Link</A>', {'C:\attachment1.txt' 'C:\attachment2.txt'});
  sendolmail('[e-mail]','Test image',
 'Test message including an image <img src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-g_C_RAP7xbdz_Da-GK20YeycTzN2JkZotcIgx22dH2v4cBULmhVdLnc">')

Alternatively, you can use SENDMAIL but BCC the e-mail to yourself so that you may retain a copy.

[William Beverley]

Works fine when I run this from within the Matlab application. However when I run it from a Matlab command window that is called up by windows scheduler I get the following:

» h = actxserver('outlook.Application'); Error using feval Server Creation Failed: Server execution failed

Error in actxserver (line 86) h=feval(['COM.' convertedProgID], 'server', machinename, interface);

[Richa Gupta]

Did you upgrade your Windows OS before you started seeing this error? I would suggest contacting MathWorks Technical Support for help.

[Michael]

Will this only work for PC, Mac as well?

[Madeline Gardner]

Unfortunately, COM functions such as the ones used here are only available on Windows systems. However, using "sendmail" and BCCing yourself should work on Mac:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/sendmail.html

[zbingos]

Hi it is possible to preview the mail before the sending command ''mail.Send; ''?

[Zach Diaks]

You should be able to preview using mail.Display

[Emily T. Griffiths]

Does anyone have an update to this function? I have this embedded in a script to send me an email when the script is done, as the processing takes several days. No attachments, no body. Just a subject ('your run is done, woohoo!'). This used to work perfectly, but since I have updated to 2021 it hangs the entire script. When I run the individual parts of the function it still works so I am not sure what the issue is.

[Connor Blake]

This works for me now.

Answer 2

[Yucheng]

Thanks for sharing this, the process to send images in the email main body is exactly what I am after.

However, there is one minor error. In the example, there is a redundant symbol "<" after the img src=" code, and the correct one should be:

'Test message including an image <img src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-g_C_RAP7xbdz_Da-GK20YeycTzN2JkZotcIgx22dH2v4cBULmhVdLnc http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-g_C_RAP7xbdz_Da-GK20YeycTzN2JkZotcIgx22dH2v4cBULmhVdLnc">>')

[Vandana Ravichandran]

Thank you for pointing out the error, I have updated the answer to include your suggested change

Answer 3

[Shantanu]

Hi, I am not able to send an email using above mentioned code for multiple email id. Please can you provide an example for how to send an email for multiple email id?

[Aubai]

Try this one

if true
  % code
  function sendolmail(to,subject,body,attachments)
  %Sends email using MS Outlook. The format of the function is 
  %Similar to the SENDMAIL command.

    if ischar(attachments)
       attachments = {attachments};
    end
    if iscell(body)
       body = char(body);
    end
    if iscell(subject)
       subject = char(subject);
    end
    if length(to) > 1
      to = strjoin(to,';')
    end
    % Create object and set parameters.
    h = actxserver('outlook.Application');
    mail = h.CreateItem('olMail');
    mail.Subject = subject;
    mail.To = to;
    mail.BodyFormat = 'olFormatHTML';
    mail.HTMLBody = body;

   % Add attachments, if specified.
   if nargin == 4
    for i = 1:length(attachments)
        mail.attachments.Add(attachments{i});
    end
   end

   % Send message and release object.
   mail.Send;
   h.release;
   end
  end

hope this answer your question :)

[Virane Gahlot]

Really a very simple approach but u need not to convert the sender addres to string u can directly send the string followed by single qote in function argument.

Answer 4

[christina]

Hi, thank you very much for this code. I would like to send a standardized mail to some recipients which should have at least some formating as paragraphs and maybe also font sizes. Is this possible? Thank you!

[zbingos]

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