Automatic email with attachment?

[Hal Burgiss]

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 7:46 PM, H.S. <hs.samix at gmail.com> wrote:
> Patton Echols wrote:
>> I have a need to email files to various folks on a regular basis.  I
>> would like to automate the process.  My idea is that a file would get
>> dropped into a particular folder.  Normally the folder would be empty.
>> But when a file is dropped there, it is automatically attached to an
>> email and sent to an email address.
>>
>> Does anyone know of a prebuilt utility that will do this?  If I need to
>> script it, does anyone have a script that they use for this purpose?
>>
>> I have a vague memory of something like this on the list, but I have
>> been unable to construct a search that gets me anything.
>>
>> (The worse bit is I think I participated in the thread, and I STILL
>> can't find it.  Obviously I'm an idiot!)
>>
>> Thanks for aiding the hopeless

> Here is one option:
> http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/sending-mail-with-attachment.html
>
> It should be easy to create a cron job that runs every periodically (few
> minutes, half hour, whatever) to call a bash script that checks if a
> particular directory has any file in it, if yes, then send that file as
> an attachment and then to remove them.

You might could by without needing a script and do it all from within cron:

*/10 * * * * cd ~/attach ; [ -f attach.txt ] && echo "See attached"
|mutt -s "Here ya go" -a attach.txt joe at example.com && rm attach.txt

Note: not fully tested.

-- 
Hal