Send-MailMessage Attachment from memory - powershell

Question

I am trying to send attachments in Send-MailMessage without saving to disk first by using the answer I found in this thread, which points to this URL.
It says to use:
$attachment = [System.Net.Mail.Attachment]::CreateAttachmentFromString($attachmenttext,"test.txt")
But when I try to do that with Send-MailMessage instead of the complicated way it shows, I get this error:
Send-MailMessage -From "email#email.com" -To "email#email.com" -Subject "Subject" -Body $body -SmtpServer "smtp.server.local" -Port 25 -BodyAsHtml -Attachments $attachment
Send-MailMessage : Could not find file 'C:\Windows\system32\System.Net.Mail.Attachment'.
At line:3 char:1
+ Send-MailMessage -From "email#email.com" -To "email#e ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Send-MailMessage], FileNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.IO.FileNotFoundException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SendMailMessage
Is there anyway to continue using Send-MailMessage with this method? Or is there a different method that will allow me to attach files without first saving to disk while still using send-mailmessage?

Answer 1

Let me first go over whats wrong. [System.Net.Mail.Attachment]::CreateAttachmentFromString outputs type System.Net.Mail.Attachment while send-mailmessage -attachments is looking for an array of strings string[]. Thats why the example will fail.
I have written a simple function so you can use the attachment you have posted in the example which creates a MailMessage and looks for attachments of type [System.Net.Mail.Attachment].
Function Try-SendMail([string[]]$To, [string]$From, [string]$SmtpServer, [int]$Port = 25, [pscredential]$SmtpCredential, [string]$Subject, [string]$Body, [System.Net.Mail.Attachment[]]$attachment, [switch]$IsBodyHTML){
[System.Net.Mail.MailMessage]$Mail = new-object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage
$To | %{$Mail.To.Add($_)}
$Mail.From = $From
$Mail.IsBodyHtml = $IsBodyHTML
$Mail.Body = $Body
$Mail.Subject = $Subject
$Attachment | %{$mail.Attachments.Add($_)}
[System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient]$SMTP = new-object System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient
$SMTP.Host = $SmtpServer
$SMTP.Port = $Port
If($SmtpCredential){
$NetCredential = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential
$NetCredential.UserName = $SmtpCredential.GetNetworkCredential().UserName
$NetCredential.Password = $SmtpCredential.GetNetworkCredential().Password
$SMTP.Credentials = $NetCredential
}
try{
$SMTP.Send($Mail)
}catch{
$_ | select *
}
}
you can use it like
$To = #("Person1#Test.com","Person2#Test.com")
$From = "MainGuy#PErson.com"
$Server = "SMTPSERVER.NET"
$Port = 587
$Attachments = #(
$([System.Net.Mail.Attachment]::CreateAttachmentFromString("HELLO", "Test.txt")),
$([System.Net.Mail.Attachment]::CreateAttachmentFromString("HELLO2", "Test2.txt"))
)
$SmtpCredential = Get-Credential
Try-SendMail -to $To -From $From -Subject "Hello" -Body "World" -Attachment $Attachments -SmtpServer $Server -port $Port -SmtpCredential $SmtpCredential
*Edited forgot to make [System.Net.Mail.Attachment] to [System.Net.Mail.Attachment[]] in the function parameters