Sending emails with PowerShell is pretty straightforward. Emails can be sent either by default through a normal SMTP server or they can be dumped into a local instance of IIS to be picked up and delivered. Both can be useful depending on the situation.

First, I want to prove I can send email from my workstation through the fictious mail server at mail.server.com. Each of the .Send method arguments can be string variables if needed.

$smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient(“mail.server.com”)
$smtp.send(“mike@server.com”,”mike@server.com”,”test”,”test”)
$smtp

Host : mail.server.com
Port : 25
UseDefaultCredentials : False
Credentials :
Timeout : 100000
ServicePoint : System.Net.ServicePoint
DeliveryMethod : Network
PickupDirectoryLocation :
EnableSsl : False
ClientCertificates : {}

This next example dumps the email to the local IIS instance. Just change the DeliveryMethod and then send the email as normal.

PS> $smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient
$smtp.DeliveryMethod = “PickupDirectoryFromIis”
$smtp.send(“mike@server.com”,”mike@server.com”,”test”,”test”)
$smtp

Host :
Port : 25
UseDefaultCredentials : False
Credentials :
Timeout : 100000
ServicePoint : System.Net.ServicePoint
DeliveryMethod : PickupDirectoryFromIis
PickupDirectoryLocation :
EnableSsl : False
ClientCertificates : {}

I consider this a major part of scripting of any type: notifications. It is not necessarily enough to just log something if you never check logs. I’d rather throw something to the foreground, which includes an actual error, or in the case of a daily notification that a script has run, a quick email to my Inbox. This can even complement logs, such as with a log tail script that emails on certain events. Among many, many other uses.