ActionMailer sending real emails in test mode! - How to turn off?

Question

Newly signed up users to my little app must be approved by the admin (me) before they can gain access to the site. I've succeeded in generating such emails in development with an after_create :send_admin_email in my user model which works great. My problem is that I'm generating multiple users during my tests (using FactoryGirl) and each test user created sends off a real email. Running my tests is like pouring molasses in January and I've got to delete hundreds of emails sent to my inbox. How do I turn that off?

Action Mailer Basics in the Rails Guides tells me that "By default Action Mailer does not send emails in the test environment. They are just added to the ActionMailer::Base.deliveries array."

Moreover, in config/environments/test.rb I've got:

config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :test

That's in addition to in config/environment.rb having:

# Configuration for using SendGrid on Heroku
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
  :address        => 'smtp.sendgrid.net',
  :port           => '587',
  :authentication => :plain,
  :user_name      => 'app[my app number]@heroku.com',
  :password       => '[something super secret]',
  :domain         => '[let's get this party started!.com]',
  :enable_starttls_auto => true
}
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp

I'm sure that I'm missing something simple and basic. I've searched around and related questions and posts deal with how to test that ActionMailer actually sent email.

Humble gratitude in advance for any thoughts or help.

Addendum: Following answer to similar question found at Is it possible to turn off ActionMailer emails when cucumber testing is happening on development? I was able to stop the email sending madness. Still, I had to add ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :test to several rspec files. Is there a way I can shut this down globally? Anyone have any thoughts on what's going on?

With all of those emails, I exceeded my 200/day allowed by Send Grid. I've found How to write features that don't actually use Sendgrid? which says that ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp' in 'config/environment.rb is overriding config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :test in config/environments/test.rb I've moved ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp' into config/environments/development.rb` and config/environments/production.rb which may work.Will update tomorrow. — BenU

BenU BenU · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-10T15:48:57

So I've figured it out. Having the line ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp in config/environment.rb overrides ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :test in config/environments/test.rb.

So, delete that line, ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp' from config/environment.rb and place it in config/environments/production.rb. That allows you to place ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :test in config/environments/test.rb and the version you want in config/environments/development.rb. I made development.rb :test as I populated my database using Faker and changed it to smtp so I was sure that real emails were sent as an additional check.

Note: You must restart your server for these changes to take effect.

Another note: Heroku's current SendGrid Instructions put the SendGrid Heroku configuration code in a new config/initializers/mail.rb file which will likely require removing its last line and placing the desired version in each config/environments/[production.rb, development.rb, test.rb]

ActionMailer sending real emails in test mode! - How to turn off?

3 Answers