Send Email for VS Code
Compose, send, and read emails — without leaving your editor.
Overview
Send Email brings your Gmail inbox and compose workflow directly into VS Code. Whether you need to fire off a quick message or check an incoming email, you can do it without switching to a browser or email client.
Features
|
|
| ✉️ Compose from the sidebar |
Click the envelope icon in the Activity Bar to open the compose form in the sidebar panel |
| ⌨️ Compose from the Command Palette |
Run Email: Send Email to open the form as a full editor tab |
| 📥 Inbox panel |
Browse your recent emails in the Activity Bar — two-line items show subject, date, and sender at a glance |
| 📄 Email reader |
Click any message to open it as an editor tab with rendered HTML body and full headers |
| 🖼️ Privacy-first image loading |
External images are blocked by default; a Load Images button lets you opt in per message |
| 📑 Paginated inbox |
Loads 20 emails at a time with a Load more emails… entry to fetch older pages |
| ♻️ Tab reuse |
Clicking the same email twice reveals the existing tab instead of opening a duplicate |
| 🌍 Multilingual |
UI fully translated into English, Portuguese (pt-BR), Spanish, and French |
| 🎨 Theme-aware |
All UI surfaces use VS Code CSS variables and match your current colour theme |
Requirements
- A Gmail account with 2-Step Verification enabled
- A Gmail App Password — used instead of your regular password
Other IMAP/SMTP providers work too — just update the host and port settings.
Generating a Gmail App Password
- Sign in to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
- Under App passwords, create a new entry (e.g. name it
VS Code)
- Copy the generated 16-character password
Setup
Open Settings (Ctrl+, / Cmd+,) and search for Send Email, or add the following to your settings.json:
{
"sendEmail.smtpUser": "you@gmail.com",
"sendEmail.smtpPassword": "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx", // 16-char app password
"sendEmail.fromAddress": "Your Name <you@gmail.com>" // optional
}
All Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
sendEmail.smtpHost |
smtp.gmail.com |
SMTP server hostname |
sendEmail.smtpPort |
465 |
SMTP port (SSL) |
sendEmail.smtpUser |
(required) |
Gmail address used to send emails |
sendEmail.smtpPassword |
(required) |
Gmail app password |
sendEmail.fromAddress |
— |
Display name / address shown in the From field (defaults to smtpUser) |
sendEmail.imapHost |
imap.gmail.com |
IMAP server hostname (used by the inbox) |
sendEmail.imapPort |
993 |
IMAP port (SSL) |
🔒 Security: smtpPassword is stored as a VS Code secret. Configure it in User Settings (not Workspace Settings) to keep it out of project files committed to source control.
Usage
Sending an Email
From the Activity Bar:
- Click the ✉️ envelope icon in the left Activity Bar
- The compose form opens in the sidebar
- Fill in To, Subject, and Message
- Click Send
From the Command Palette:
- Press
Ctrl+Shift+P (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS)
- Type
Send Email and press Enter
- The compose form opens as an editor panel
Reading Your Inbox
- Click the ✉️ envelope icon in the Activity Bar to expand the panel
- Click the ↻ Refresh button in the Inbox panel toolbar to load your emails
- Each item shows the subject on the first line and date · sender on the second line
- Click any email to open it in a reader tab in your active editor group
- If an email contains external images, a privacy banner will appear — click Load Images to display them
- Scroll to the bottom and click Load more emails… to fetch the next page of older messages
Known Limitations
- Send is plain-text only — HTML composition and file attachments are not supported
- Gmail / Google Workspace recommended — other providers require manual host and port configuration
- The inbox reads from the INBOX folder only
Release Notes
See CHANGELOG.md for a full version history.
Contributing
Bug reports and feature requests are welcome on GitHub Issues.
Author
Bee Coders — Developed by Luiz Alberto B. Mesquita
License
MIT
