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launching thunderbird from command line on mac os with compose arguments

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  • Last reply by jaumedt

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I'm launching Thunderbird from command line on mac os with compose arguments like this:

open -a /Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird --args --compose

it runs thunderbird and show the compose window. great!

The issue is when thunderbird is running before launching the shell command, it only shows the thunderbird inbox window, not the thunderbird compose window.

Any Idea ?

Thank you for your help

I'm launching Thunderbird from command line on mac os with compose arguments like this: open -a /Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird --args --compose it runs thunderbird and show the compose window. great! The issue is when thunderbird is running before launching the shell command, it only shows the thunderbird inbox window, not the thunderbird compose window. Any Idea ? Thank you for your help

All Replies (6)

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Never understood the use of the command line option in this case.

Use the mailto: protocol to launch your default mailer on all operating systems. With the use of appropriate mailto parameters you can basically compose the entire message with it, just not actually click send.

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Thank you Matt

Unfortunatelly mailto: doesn't support file attachments

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See the link for an example of a mailto: with the attachment parameter set.

I appear to recall Windows had somewhat flaky support for mailto: Is the Apple implementation worse?

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sure!

I'have been gathering on the net about composing emails with emailto and I have found a lot of them but none of them works

Thank you

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jaumedt said

sure! I'have been gathering on the net about composing emails with emailto and I have found a lot of them but none of them works Thank you

have you tried an attachment of a few btyes of text in a text file? Most issue I have seen with mailto are either related to limitations of the software doing the implementation or the operating system. For example web browsers typically do not have access to the local file system, so an attachment using the local file system would fail, whereas an attachment on a public web server would not. Mail to like any programing task is not just a matter if rolling it up and it will work. Just as Windows MAPI is questionable on any product not released by Microsoft.

You might want to try -new-instance at the commend line. I do not know if it will do what you want.

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Hi Matt

Thunderbird doesn't support more than one instance on mac os.

Eventually I decided to code an email socket. May be I could use thunderbird in new releases.

Thank you for your help