All Tips

How to use Protonmail Bridge in GitHub actions or Docker!

dockerGitHub actionsProtonmail

Using Protonmail Bridge in automation pipelines can be useful for sending emails etc using their SMPT service.

It took a bit to figure out, but in the end it is fairly simple.

You may be interested in more configuration options from Protonbridge CLI docs.

∞ Install some package

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y pass gnupg wget libqt5gui5 libqt5core5a libqt5widgets5 libqt5qml5 libqt5network5 libqt5svg5 libpulse-mainloop-glib0 fonts-dejavu libsecret-1-0

∞ Setup a password manager

This is the trickiest step.

gpg --batch --passphrase '' --quick-gen-key 'ProtonMail Bridge' default default never
pass init "ProtonMail Bridge"

∞ Install Protonmail Bridge

mkdir protonmail-bridge && cd protonmail-bridge
wget https://proton.me/download/bridge/protonmail-bridge_2.3.0-1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

∞ Login to the Bridge

Here, substitute $LOGIN_EMAIL and $LOGIN_PASSWORD for your actual credentials.

protonmail-bridge --cli << EOT
login
$LOGIN_EMAIL
$LOGIN_PASSWORD
EOT

∞ Change the secutiry method for SMPT

This is optional. Change the SMTP security from TTL to SSL if needed for your sender.

protonmail-bridge --cli << EOT
change smtp-security ssl
yes
EOT
sleep 5 # just in case we need to wait for bridge to restart.

∞ Get the SMTP connection info from the bridge

Next we can get the login info from the bridge.

CONNECTION=$(protonmail-bridge --cli << EOT
info 0
EOT
)
EMAIL_RELAY_PASSWORD=$(echo $CONNECTION | grep -Po 'Password: \K[^ ]+' | head -1)

Hostname will be localhost.
Port will be 1143 but can be changed with another cli command.
Username will be your login email address.

∞ Start Protonmail Bridge as a headless process

nohup protonmail-bridge --noninteractive > bridge_log.txt 2>&1 & disown
sleep 1

Thats about it!

You can now send emails using the config we have found:

hostname="localhost"
port=1143
use_ssl=True
username=<your proton email address>
password=$EMAIL_RELAY_PASSWORD
location