Parsing a file of email adresses to set email recipients - powershell

Question

I'm trying to write a PowerShell script which parses a list of email addresses and send a mail to them.
The file is formatted this way:
a.a#domain.com
b.b#domain.com
c.c#domain.com
...
I figured something like:
$recipients = Get-Content -Path MY_FILE.txt
$outlook = New-Object -ComObject Outlook.Application
$mail = $Outlook.CreateItem(0)
$mail.To = $recipients # here's the problem
$mail.Subject = "MY_SUBJECT"
$mail.HTMLBody = "MY_HTML_BODY"
$mail.Send()
My problem, as you can see is: how can I assign the addresses in $recipients to $mail.To?

Answer 1

When in doubt, read the documentation:
MailItem.To Property (Outlook)
Returns or sets a semicolon-delimited String list of display names for the To recipients for the Outlook item.
Read/write.
[...]
Remarks
This property contains the display names only. The To property corresponds to the MAPI property PidTagDisplayTo. The Recipients collection should be used to modify this property.
Emphasis mine.
To send one mail to all recipients change this line:
$mail.To = $recipients
into this:
foreach ($addr in $recipients) {
$mail.Recipients.Add($addr)
}
and the code should do what you want.

Answer 2

If you want to send every address in your file a separate email do it this way:
$recipients = Get-Content -Path MY_FILE.txt
$outlook = New-Object -ComObject Outlook.Application
ForEach ($recipient in $recipients) {
$mail = $Outlook.CreateItem(0)
$mail.To = $recipient
$mail.Subject = "MY_SUBJECT"
$mail.HTMLBody = "MY_HTML_BODY"
$mail.Send()
}
Also make sure you close the COM Object by adding the following to the end of your file:
$outlook.Quit()
[System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($outlook) | Out-Null

Answer 3

You could try something like this:
$file = "$PSScriptRoot\MY_FILE.txt"
# Add a List of recipients
$to = #()
foreach ($email in (Get-Content $file)) {
$to += "$email;"
}
Write-Host "Complete recipient-list: $to"
$outlook = New-Object -ComObject Outlook.Application
$mail = $Outlook.CreateItem(0)
$mail.To = "$to"
$mail.Subject = "MY_SUBJECT"
$mail.HTMLBody = "MY_HTML_BODY"
$mail.Send()