Send Email using PowerShell

While this isn’t directly related to SharePoint, there may be some times that you need to run a long running operation with PowerShell and would like to receive an email notification when the operation is completed. Here is a quick function you can place into most any script and then call to send notifications.

Since most SharePoint implementations are already configured to allow email notifications to be sent (alerts) you may be able to allow your scripts to also send you alerts. Here’s the script:

function send-notification($subject, $detail) {
    $message = New-Object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage
    $message.Subject = $subject
    $message.Body = $detail
    $message.To.Add("recipient@domain.com")
    $message.From = "sender@domain.com"
    
    $client = New-Object System.Net.Mail.SMTPClient -ArgumentList "smtp.domain.com"
    $client.Send($message)
}

To make use of the function, just simply call it with the necessary parameters:

send-notification -subject "$dbname Attached" -detail "The content database $dbname has completed the database attach upgrade. Please review the logs in Central Administration as soon as possible."

Enjoy!

Edit 12/8/2011: If you would like to send to multiple users, you can do the following:

$message.To.Add("nextemail@domain.com")
$message.To.Add("anotherperson@domain.com")
#You can also CC and BCC
$message.Cc.Add("firstcc@domain.com")
$message.Bcc.Add("firstbcc@domain.com")