How to attach a file to an HTML email using Apache Commons Email

Question

I'm using Apache Commons Email 1.1 and I can't figure out how to attach a file to an HtmlEmail. If I run the code below, I get an email with an attachment, but the HTML message comes across as an attachment also.

If I don't call email.attach() the HTML message come through as you would expect, but I need both the HTML message to come through and the attachment. What am I missing?

  HtmlEmail email = new HtmlEmail();
  email.setHostName("localhost");
  email.addTo("[email protected]", "Test");
  email.setFrom("[email protected]", "Test App");
  email.setSubject("Test message");
  email.setHtmlMsg("<div style='font-size: 20px; color: green;'>This is html email</div>");

  EmailAttachment attachment = new EmailAttachment();
  attachment.setPath(pdfPath);
  attachment.setDisposition(EmailAttachment.ATTACHMENT);
  email.attach(attachment);

  email.send();

Rostov

Oh.. by the way, I was using gmail as my test client. – Rostov

Did you try to force content type by doing email.setContent(javax.mail.internet.MimeMultipart aMimeMultipart)? It's probably redundant but worth a shot – Guendolen

@droidin-net I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I though the whole point of apache commons email was to abstract you from the MimeMultipart stuff. – Rostov

Answer 1

email.attach(new ByteArrayDataSource(pdfBytes, "application/pdf"),
      "document.pdf", "Document description",
       EmailAttachment.ATTACHMENT);

this works with commons-email 1.1.

pdfBytes should be a byte[] containing the bytes of the pdf document. If that doesn't suit you, you can try other DataSource implementations, but I can't guarantee they'd work (although they should).

(The one above is org.apache.commons.mail.ByteArrayDataSource)

Axes

Answer 2

Note that using:

email.attach(new ByteArrayDataSource(pdfBytes, "application/pdf"),
      "document.pdf", "Document description",
       EmailAttachment.ATTACHMENT);

on a HtmlEmail using commons-email 1.1 causes the resulting email to have its message (text or html) enclosed as an attachment.

Switching to a MultiPartEmail fixed this.

Guillema

Answer 3

I suggest you try the current release candidate v1.2 RC2 as 1.1 (I guess you use that) has some html layout problems

commons-email 1.2 RC2

Kasiekask

Answer 4

I use the HtmlEmail#embed(URL, String) method:

File pdf = new File(pdfPath);
email.embed(pdf.toURI().toURL(), pdf.getName)

Bossism

Answer 5

On latest release (1.5) the following code worked for me

 email.attach(new FileDataSource(attachmentFileObject), "AttachmentName", "Description");

Argilliferous

Answer 6

You can use up-casting and down-casting in Java.

1. HtmlEmail extends MultiPartEmail, and attacch method returns the MultiPartEmail class.
2. HtmlEmail will be converted to MultiPartEmail, and then use tempEmail.attach (attachment).

3. Then MultiPartEmail will be converted back to HtmlEmail class.

   HtmlEmail email;
   MultiPartEmail tempEmail;
   
   // HtmlEmail -> MultiPartEmail
   tempEmail = new HtmlEmail();
   
   // Add a attachment
   EmailAttachment attachment = new EmailAttachment();
   attachment.setURL(new URL(fileURL));
   attachment.setDisposition(EmailAttachment.ATTACHMENT);
   attachment.setName(MimeUtility.encodeText(fileName));
   tempEmail = tempEmail.attach(attachment);
   
   // MultiPartEmail -> HtmlEmail
   email = (HtmlEmail)tempEmail;
   

Sulphonamide