PHP mail function doesn't complete sending of e-mail

518
votes
<?php
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $message = $_POST['message'];
    $from = 'From: yoursite.com';
    $to = '[email protected]';
    $subject = 'Customer Inquiry';
    $body = "From: $name\n E-Mail: $email\n Message:\n $message";

    if ($_POST['submit']) {
        if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $from)) {
            echo '<p>Your message has been sent!</p>';
        } else {
            echo '<p>Something went wrong, go back and try again!</p>';
        }
    }
?>

I've tried creating a simple mail form. The form itself is on my index.html page, but it submits to a separate "thank you for your submission" page, thankyou.php, where the above PHP code is embedded. The code submits perfectly, but never sends an email. How can I fix this?

29
phphtmlemail
is your program in local computer or live host – Tamil Selvan C
1. are you sure it isn't going into your spam? 2. do you have sendmail configured on your box? – Steven Moseley
its on a live host it is not going into my spam..i'm not sure what you mean by having sendmail configured on my box so i assume not? – user3818620
try send without $from – Artem Ilchenko

29 Answers

565
votes

Although there are portions of this answer that apply to only to the usage of themail() function itself, many of these troubleshooting steps can be applied to any PHP mailing system.

There are a variety of reasons your script appears to not be sending emails. It's difficult to diagnose these things unless there is an obvious syntax error. Without one you need to run through the checklist below to find any potential pitfalls you may be encountering.

Make sure error reporting is enabled and set to report all errors

Error reporting is essential to rooting out bugs in your code and general errors that PHP encounters. Error reporting needs to be enabled to receive these errors. Placing the following code at the top of your PHP files (or in a master configuration file) will enable error reporting.

error_reporting(-1);
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
set_error_handler("var_dump");

See How can I get useful error messages in PHP? — this answer for more details on this.

Make sure the mail() function is called

It may seem silly but a common error is to forget to actually place the mail() function in your code. Make sure it is there and not commented out.

Make sure the mail() function is called correctly

bool mail ( string $to , string $subject , string $message [, string $additional_headers [, string $additional_parameters ]] )

The mail function takes three required parameters and optionally a fourth and fifth one. If your call to mail() does not have at least three parameters it will fail.

If your call to mail() does not have the correct parameters in the correct order it will also fail.

Check the server's mail logs

Your web server should be logging all attempts to send emails through it. The location of these logs will vary (you may need to ask your server administrator where they are located) but they can commonly be found in a user's root directory under logs. Inside will be error messages the server reported, if any, related to your attempts to send emails.

Check for Port connection failure

Port block is a very common problem which most developers face while integrating their code to deliver emails using SMTP. And, this can be easily traced at the server maillogs (the location of server of mail log can vary from server to server, as explained above). In case you are on a shared hosting server, the ports 25 and 587 remain blocked by default. This block is been purposely done by your hosting provider. This is true even for some of the dedicated servers. When these ports are blocked, try to connect using port 2525. If you find that port is also blocked, then the only solution is to contact your hosting provider to unblock these ports.

Most of the hosting providers block these email ports to protect their network from sending any spam emails.

Use ports 25 or 587 for plain/TLS connections and port 465 for SSL connections. For most users, it is suggested to use port 587 to avoid rate limits set by some hosting providers.

Don't use the error suppression operator

When the error suppression operator @ is prepended to an expression in PHP, any error messages that might be generated by that expression will be ignored. There are circumstances where using this operator is necessary but sending mail is not one of them.

If your code contains @mail(...) then you may be hiding important error messages that will help you debug this. Remove the @ and see if any errors are reported.

It's only advisable when you check with error_get_last() right afterwards for concrete failures.

Check the mail() return value

The mail() function:

Returns TRUE if the mail was successfully accepted for delivery, FALSE otherwise. It is important to note that just because the mail was accepted for delivery, it does NOT mean the mail will actually reach the intended destination.

This is important to note because:

  • If you receive a FALSE return value you know the error lies with your server accepting your mail. This probably isn't a coding issue but a server configuration issue. You need to speak to your system administrator to find out why this is happening.
  • If you receive a TRUE return value it does not mean your email will definitely be sent. It just means the email was sent to its respective handler on the server successfully by PHP. There are still more points of failure outside of PHP's control that can cause the email to not be sent.

So FALSE will help point you in the right direction whereas TRUE does not necessarily mean your email was sent successfully. This is important to note!

Make sure your hosting provider allows you to send emails and does not limit mail sending

Many shared webhosts, especially free webhosting providers, either do not allow emails to be sent from their servers or limit the amount that can be sent during any given time period. This is due to their efforts to limit spammers from taking advantage of their cheaper services.

If you think your host has emailing limits or blocks the sending of emails, check their FAQs to see if they list any such limitations. Otherwise, you may need to reach out to their support to verify if there are any restrictions in place around the sending of emails.

Check spam folders; prevent emails from being flagged as spam

Oftentimes, for various reasons, emails sent through PHP (and other server-side programming languages) end up in a recipient's spam folder. Always check there before troubleshooting your code.

To avoid mail sent through PHP from being sent to a recipient's spam folder, there are various things you can do, both in your PHP code and otherwise, to minimize the chances your emails are marked as spam. Good tips from Michiel de Mare include:

  • Use email authentication methods, such as SPF, and DKIM to prove that your emails and your domain name belong together, and to prevent spoofing of your domain name. The SPF website includes a wizard to generate the DNS information for your site.
  • Check your reverse DNS to make sure the IP address of your mail server points to the domain name that you use for sending mail.
  • Make sure that the IP-address that you're using is not on a blacklist
  • Make sure that the reply-to address is a valid, existing address.
  • Use the full, real name of the addressee in the To field, not just the email-address (e.g. "John Smith" <[email protected]> ).
  • Monitor your abuse accounts, such as [email protected] and [email protected]. That means - make sure that these accounts exist, read what's sent to them, and act on complaints.
  • Finally, make it really easy to unsubscribe. Otherwise, your users will unsubscribe by pressing the spam button, and that will affect your reputation.

See How do you make sure email you send programmatically is not automatically marked as spam? for more on this topic.

Make sure all mail headers are supplied

Some spam software will reject mail if it is missing common headers such as "From" and "Reply-to":

$headers = array("From: [email protected]",
    "Reply-To: [email protected]",
    "X-Mailer: PHP/" . PHP_VERSION
);
$headers = implode("\r\n", $headers);
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

Make sure mail headers have no syntax errors

Invalid headers are just as bad as having no headers. One incorrect character could be all it takes to derail your email. Double-check to make sure your syntax is correct as PHP will not catch these errors for you.

$headers = array("From [email protected]", // missing colon
    "Reply To: [email protected]",      // missing hyphen
    "X-Mailer: "PHP"/" . PHP_VERSION      // bad quotes
);

Don't use a faux From: sender

While the mail must have a From: sender, you may not just use any value. In particular user-supplied sender addresses are a surefire way to get mails blocked:

$headers = array("From: $_POST[contactform_sender_email]"); // No!

Reason: your web or sending mail server is not SPF/DKIM-whitelisted to pretend being responsible for @hotmail or @gmail addresses. It may even silently drop mails with From: sender domains it's not configured for.

Make sure the recipient value is correct

Sometimes the problem is as simple as having an incorrect value for the recipient of the email. This can be due to using an incorrect variable.

$to = '[email protected]';
// other variables ....
mail($recipient, $subject, $message, $headers); // $recipient should be $to

Another way to test this is to hard code the recipient value into the mail() function call:

mail('[email protected]', $subject, $message, $headers);

This can apply to all of the mail() parameters.

Send to multiple accounts

To help rule out email account issues, send your email to multiple email accounts at different email providers. If your emails are not arriving at a user's Gmail account, send the same emails to a Yahoo account, a Hotmail account, and a regular POP3 account (like your ISP-provided email account).

If the emails arrive at all or some of the other email accounts, you know your code is sending emails but it is likely that the email account provider is blocking them for some reason. If the email does not arrive at any email account, the problem is more likely to be related to your code.

Make sure the code matches the form method

If you have set your form method to POST, make sure you are using $_POST to look for your form values. If you have set it to GET or didn't set it at all, make sure you use $_GET to look for your form values.

Make sure your form action value points to the correct location

Make sure your form action attribute contains a value that points to your PHP mailing code.

<form action="send_email.php" method="POST">

Make sure the Web host supports sending email

Some Web hosting providers do not allow or enable the sending of emails through their servers. The reasons for this may vary but if they have disabled the sending of mail you will need to use an alternative method that uses a third party to send those emails for you.

An email to their technical support (after a trip to their online support or FAQ) should clarify if email capabilities are available on your server.

Make sure the localhost mail server is configured

If you are developing on your local workstation using WAMP, MAMP, or XAMPP, an email server is probably not installed on your workstation. Without one, PHP cannot send mail by default.

You can overcome this by installing a basic mail server. For Windows you can use the free Mercury Mail.

You can also use SMTP to send your emails. See this great answer from Vikas Dwivedi to learn how to do this.

Enable PHP's custom mail.log

In addition to your MTA's and PHP's log file, you can enable logging for the mail() function specifically. It doesn't record the complete SMTP interaction, but at least function call parameters and invocation script.

ini_set("mail.log", "/tmp/mail.log");
ini_set("mail.add_x_header", TRUE);

See http://php.net/manual/en/mail.configuration.php for details. (It's best to enable these options in the php.ini or .user.ini or .htaccess perhaps.)

Check with a mail testing service

There are various delivery and spamminess checking services you can utilize to test your MTA/webserver setup. Typically you send a mail probe To: their address, then get a delivery report and more concrete failures or analyzations later:

Use a different mailer

PHP's built-in mail() function is handy and often gets the job done but it has its shortcomings. Fortunately, there are alternatives that offer more power and flexibility including handling a lot of the issues outlined above:

All of which can be combined with a professional SMTP server/service provider. (Because typical 08/15 shared webhosting plans are hit or miss when it comes to email setup/configurability.)

43
votes

Add a mail header in the mail function:

$header = "From: [email protected]\r\n";
$header.= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$header.= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1\r\n";
$header.= "X-Priority: 1\r\n";

$status = mail($to, $subject, $message, $header);

if($status)
{
    echo '<p>Your mail has been sent!</p>';
} else {
    echo '<p>Something went wrong. Please try again!</p>';
}
26
votes
  1. Always try sending headers in the mail function.
  2. If you are sending mail through localhost then do the SMTP settings for sending mail.
  3. If you are sending mail through a server then check the email sending feature is enabled on your server.
22
votes

If you are using an SMTP configuration for sending your email, try using PHPMailer instead. You can download the library from https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer.

I created my email sending this way:

function send_mail($email, $recipient_name, $message='')
{
    require("phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php");

    $mail = new PHPMailer();

    $mail->CharSet = "utf-8";
    $mail->IsSMTP();                                      // Set mailer to use SMTP
    $mail->Host = "mail.example.com";  // Specify main and backup server
    $mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // Turn on SMTP authentication
    $mail->Username = "myusername";  // SMTP username
    $mail->Password = "p@ssw0rd"; // SMTP password

    $mail->From = "[email protected]";
    $mail->FromName = "System-Ad";
    $mail->AddAddress($email, $recipient_name);

    $mail->WordWrap = 50;                                 // Set word wrap to 50 characters
    $mail->IsHTML(true);                                  // Set email format to HTML (true) or plain text (false)

    $mail->Subject = "This is a Sampleenter code here Email";
    $mail->Body    = $message;
    $mail->AltBody = "This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients";
    $mail->AddEmbeddedImage('images/logo.png', 'logo', 'logo.png');
    $mail->addAttachment('files/file.xlsx');

    if(!$mail->Send())
    {
       echo "Message could not be sent. <p>";
       echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
       exit;
    }

    echo "Message has been sent";
}
18
votes

Just add some headers before sending mail:

<?php 
$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
$from = 'From: yoursite.com'; 
$to = '[email protected]'; 
$subject = 'Customer Inquiry';
$body = "From: $name\n E-Mail: $email\n Message:\n $message";

$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: [email protected]' . "\r\n" .
'Reply-To: [email protected]' . "\r\n" .
'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

And one more thing. The mail() function is not working in localhost. Upload your code to a server and try.

15
votes

It worked for me on 000webhost by doing the following:

$headers  = "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "From: ". $from. "\r\n";
$headers .= "Reply-To: ". $from. "\r\n";
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion();
$headers .= "X-Priority: 1" . "\r\n";

Enter directly the email address when sending the email:

mail('[email protected]', $subject, $message, $headers)

Use '' and not "".

This code works, but the email was received with half an hour lag.

11
votes

Mostly the mail() function is disabled in shared hosting. A better option is to use SMTP. The best option would be Gmail or SendGrid.

SMTPconfig.php

<?php 
    $SmtpServer="smtp.*.*";
    $SmtpPort="2525"; //default
    $SmtpUser="***";
    $SmtpPass="***";
?>

SMTPmail.php

<?php
class SMTPClient
{

    function SMTPClient ($SmtpServer, $SmtpPort, $SmtpUser, $SmtpPass, $from, $to, $subject, $body)
    {

        $this->SmtpServer = $SmtpServer;
        $this->SmtpUser = base64_encode ($SmtpUser);
        $this->SmtpPass = base64_encode ($SmtpPass);
        $this->from = $from;
        $this->to = $to;
        $this->subject = $subject;
        $this->body = $body;

        if ($SmtpPort == "") 
        {
            $this->PortSMTP = 25;
        }
        else
        {
            $this->PortSMTP = $SmtpPort;
        }
    }

    function SendMail ()
    {
        $newLine = "\r\n";
        $headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0" . $newLine;  
        $headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" . $newLine;  

        if ($SMTPIN = fsockopen ($this->SmtpServer, $this->PortSMTP)) 
        {
            fputs ($SMTPIN, "EHLO ".$HTTP_HOST."\r\n"); 
            $talk["hello"] = fgets ( $SMTPIN, 1024 ); 
            fputs($SMTPIN, "auth login\r\n");
            $talk["res"]=fgets($SMTPIN,1024);
            fputs($SMTPIN, $this->SmtpUser."\r\n");
            $talk["user"]=fgets($SMTPIN,1024);
            fputs($SMTPIN, $this->SmtpPass."\r\n");
            $talk["pass"]=fgets($SMTPIN,256);
            fputs ($SMTPIN, "MAIL FROM: <".$this->from.">\r\n"); 
            $talk["From"] = fgets ( $SMTPIN, 1024 ); 
            fputs ($SMTPIN, "RCPT TO: <".$this->to.">\r\n"); 
            $talk["To"] = fgets ($SMTPIN, 1024); 
            fputs($SMTPIN, "DATA\r\n");
            $talk["data"]=fgets( $SMTPIN,1024 );
            fputs($SMTPIN, "To: <".$this->to.">\r\nFrom: <".$this->from.">\r\n".$headers."\n\nSubject:".$this->subject."\r\n\r\n\r\n".$this->body."\r\n.\r\n");
            $talk["send"]=fgets($SMTPIN,256);
            //CLOSE CONNECTION AND EXIT ... 
            fputs ($SMTPIN, "QUIT\r\n"); 
            fclose($SMTPIN); 
            // 
        } 
        return $talk;
    } 
}
?>

contact_email.php

<?php 
include('SMTPconfig.php');
include('SMTPmail.php');
if($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST")
{
    $to = "";
    $from = $_POST['email'];
    $subject = "Enquiry";
    $body = $_POST['name'].'</br>'.$_POST['companyName'].'</br>'.$_POST['tel'].'</br>'.'<hr />'.$_POST['message'];
    $SMTPMail = new SMTPClient ($SmtpServer, $SmtpPort, $SmtpUser, $SmtpPass, $from, $to, $subject, $body);
    $SMTPChat = $SMTPMail->SendMail();
}
?>
10
votes

If you only use the mail()function, you need to complete the configuration file.

You need to open the mail expansion, and set the SMTP smtp_port and so on, and most important, your username and your password. Without that, mail cannot be sent. Also, you can use the PHPMail class to send.

10
votes

Try these two things separately and together:

  1. remove the if($_POST['submit']){}
  2. remove $from (just my gut)
9
votes

I think this should do the trick. I just added an if(isset and added concatenation to the variables in the body to separate PHP from HTML.

<?php
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $message = $_POST['message'];
    $from = 'From: yoursite.com'; 
    $to = '[email protected]'; 
    $subject = 'Customer Inquiry';
    $body = "From:" .$name."\r\n E-Mail:" .$email."\r\n Message:\r\n" .$message;

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) 
{
    if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $from)) 
    { 
        echo '<p>Your message has been sent!</p>';
    } 
    else 
    { 
        echo '<p>Something went wrong, go back and try again!</p>'; 
    }
}

?>
9
votes

For anyone who finds this going forward, I would not recommend using mail. There's some answers that touch on this, but not the why of it.

PHP's mail function is not only opaque, it fully relies on whatever MTA you use (i.e. Sendmail) to do the work. mail will only tell you if the MTA failed to accept it (i.e. Sendmail was down when you tried to send). It cannot tell you if the mail was successful because it's handed it off. As such (as John Conde's answer details), you now get to fiddle with the logs of the MTA and hope that it tells you enough about the failure to fix it. If you're on a shared host or don't have access to the MTA logs, you're out of luck. Sadly, the default for most vanilla installs for Linux handle it this way.

A mail library (PHPMailer, Zend Framework 2+, etc.), does something very different from mail. They open a socket directly to the receiving mail server and then send the SMTP mail commands directly over that socket. In other words, the class acts as its own MTA (note that you can tell the libraries to use mail to ultimately send the mail, but I would strongly recommend you not do that).

This means you can then directly see the responses from the receiving server (in PHPMailer, for instance, you can turn on debugging output). No more guessing if a mail failed to send or why.

If you're using SMTP (i.e. you're calling isSMTP()), you can get a detailed transcript of the SMTP conversation using the SMTPDebug property.

Set this option by including a line like this in your script:

$mail->SMTPDebug = 2;

You also get the benefit of a better interface. With mail you have to set up all your headers, attachments, etc. With a library, you have a dedicated function to do that. It also means the function is doing all the tricky parts (like headers).

7
votes
$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$reciver = '/* Reciver Email address */';
if (filter_var($reciver, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    $subject = $name;
    // To send HTML mail, the Content-type header must be set.
    $headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
    $headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
    $headers .= 'From:' . $email. "\r\n"; // Sender's Email
    //$headers .= 'Cc:' . $email. "\r\n"; // Carbon copy to Sender
    $template = '<div style="padding:50px; color:white;">Hello ,<br/>'
        . '<br/><br/>'
        . 'Name:' .$name.'<br/>'
        . 'Email:' .$email.'<br/>'
        . '<br/>'
        . '</div>';
    $sendmessage = "<div style=\"background-color:#7E7E7E; color:white;\">" . $template . "</div>";
    // Message lines should not exceed 70 characters (PHP rule), so wrap it.
    $sendmessage = wordwrap($sendmessage, 70);
    // Send mail by PHP Mail Function.
    mail($reciver, $subject, $sendmessage, $headers);
    echo "Your Query has been received, We will contact you soon.";
} else {
    echo "<span>* invalid email *</span>";
}
7
votes

You can use config email by CodeIgniter. For example, using SMTP (simple way):

$config = Array(
        'protocol' => 'smtp',
        'smtp_host' => 'mail.domain.com', // Your SMTP host
        'smtp_port' => 26, // Default port for SMTP
        'smtp_user' => '[email protected]',
        'smtp_pass' => 'password',
        'mailtype' => 'html',
        'charset' => 'iso-8859-1',
        'wordwrap' => TRUE
);
$message = 'Your msg';
$this->load->library('email', $config);
$this->email->from('[email protected]', 'Title');
$this->email->to('[email protected]');
$this->email->subject('Header');
$this->email->message($message);

if($this->email->send()) 
{
   // Conditional true
}

It works for me!

5
votes

Try this 

if ($_POST['submit']) {
    $success= mail($to, $subject, $body, $from);
    if($success)
    { 
        echo '
        <p>Your message has been sent!</p>
        ';
    } else { 
        echo '
        <p>Something went wrong, go back and try again!</p>
        '; 
    }
}
5
votes

Maybe the problem is the configuration of the mail server. To avoid this type of problems or you do not have to worry about the mail server problem, I recommend you use PHPMailer.

It is a plugin that has everything necessary to send mail, and the only thing you have to take into account is to have the SMTP port (Port: 25 and 465), enabled.

require_once 'PHPMailer/PHPMailer.php';
require_once '/servicios/PHPMailer/SMTP.php';
require_once '/servicios/PHPMailer/Exception.php';

$mail = new \PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer(true);
try {
    //Server settings
    $mail->SMTPDebug = 0;
    $mail->isSMTP();
    $mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
    $mail->SMTPAuth = true;
    $mail->Username = '[email protected]';
    $mail->Password = 'contrasenia';
    $mail->SMTPSecure = 'ssl';
    $mail->Port = 465;

    // Recipients
    $mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'my name');
    $mail->addAddress('[email protected]');

    // Attachments
    $mail->addAttachment('optional file');         // Add files, is optional

    // Content
    $mail->isHTML(true);// Set email format to HTML
    $mail->Subject = utf8_decode("subject");
    $mail->Body    = utf8_decode("mail content");
    $mail->AltBody = '';
    $mail->send();
}
catch (Exception $e) {
    $error = $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
4
votes

First of all, you might have too many parameters for the mail() function... You are able to have of maximum of five, mail(to, subject, message, headers, parameters);

As far as the $from variable goes, that should automatically come from your webhost if your using the Linux cPanel. It automatically comes from your cPanel username and IP address.

$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
$from = 'From: yoursite.com';
$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'Customer Inquiry';
$body = "From: $name\n E-Mail: $email\n Message:\n $message";

Also make sure you have the correct order of variables in your mail() function.

The mail($to, $subject, $message, etc.) in that order, or else there is a chance of it not working.

3
votes

Make sure you have Sendmail installed in your server.

If you have checked your code and verified that there is nothing wrong there, go to /var/mail and check whether that folder is empty.

If it is empty, you will need to do a:

sudo apt-get install sendmail

if you are on an Ubuntu server.

3
votes

If you're having trouble sending mails with PHP, consider an alternative like PHPMailer or SwiftMailer.

I usually use SwiftMailer whenever I need to send mails with PHP.

Basic usage:

require 'mail/swift_required.php';

$message = Swift_Message::newInstance()
    // The subject of your email
    ->setSubject('Jane Doe sends you a message')
    // The from address(es)
    ->setFrom(array('[email protected]' => 'Jane Doe'))
    // The to address(es)
    ->setTo(array('[email protected]' => 'Frank Stevens'))
    // Here, you put the content of your email
    ->setBody('<h3>New message</h3><p>Here goes the rest of my message</p>', 'text/html');

if (Swift_Mailer::newInstance(Swift_MailTransport::newInstance())->send($message)) {
    echo json_encode([
        "status" => "OK",
        "message" => 'Your message has been sent!'
    ], JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
} else {
    echo json_encode([
        "status" => "error",
        "message" => 'Oops! Something went wrong!'
    ], JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
}

See the official documentation for more information on how to use SwiftMailer.

3
votes

For those who do not want to use external mailers and want to mail() on a dedicated Linux server.

The way, how PHP mails, is described in php.ini in section [mail function].

Parameter sendmail-path describes how sendmail is called. The default value is sendmail -t -i, so if you get a working sendmail -t -i < message.txt in the Linux console - you will be done. You could also add mail.log to debug and be sure mail() is really called.

Different MTAs can implement sendmail. They just make a symbolic link to their binaries on that name. For example, in Debian the default is Postfix. Configure your MTA to send mail and test it from the console with sendmail -v -t -i < message.txt. File message.txt should contain all headers of a message and a body, destination address for the envelope will be taken from the To: header. Example:

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Test mail via sendmail.

Text body.

I prefer to use ssmtp as MTA because it is simple and does not require running a daemon with opened ports. ssmtp fits only for sending mail from localhost. It also can send authenticated email via your account on a public mail service. Install ssmtp and edit configuration file /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf. To be able also to receive local system mail to Unix accounts (alerts to root from cron jobs, for example) configure /etc/ssmtp/revaliases file.

Here is my configuration for my account on Yandex mail:

[email protected]
mailhub=smtp.yandex.ru:465
FromLineOverride=YES
UseTLS=YES
[email protected]
AuthPass=password
2
votes

This will only affect a small handful of users, but I'd like it documented for that small handful. This member of that small handful spent 6 hours troubleshooting a working PHP mail script because of this issue.

If you're going to a university that runs XAMPP from www.AceITLab.com, you should know what our professor didn't tell us: The AceITLab firewall (not the Windows firewall) blocks MercuryMail in XAMPP. You'll have to use an alternative mail client, pear is working for us. You'll have to send to a Gmail account with low security settings.

Yes, I know, this is totally useless for real world email. However, from what I've seen, academic settings and the real world often have precious little in common.

1
votes

If you are running this code on a local server (i.e your computer for development purposes) it won't send the email to the recipient. It will create a .txt file in a folder named mailoutput.

In the case if you are using a free hosing service, like 000webhost or hostinger, those service providers disable the mail() function to prevent unintended uses of email spoofing, spamming, etc. I prefer you to contact them to see whether they support this feature.

If you are sure that the service provider supports the mail() function, you can check this PHP manual for further reference,

PHP mail()

To check weather your hosting service support the mail() function, try running this code (remember to change the recipient email address):

<?php
    $to      = '[email protected]';
    $subject = 'the subject';
    $message = 'hello';
    $headers = 'From: [email protected]' . "\r\n" .
        'Reply-To: [email protected]' . "\r\n" .
        'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

    mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>
1
votes

Sendmail installation for Debian 10.0.0 ('Buster') was in fact trivial!

php.ini

[mail function]
sendmail_path=/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i
; (Other directives are mostly windows)

Standard sendmail package install (allowing 'send'):

su -                                        # Install as user 'root'
dpkg --list                                 # Is install necessary?
apt-get install sendmail sendmail-cf m4     # Note multiple package selection
sendmailconfig                              # Respond all 'Y' for new install

Miscellaneous useful commands:

which sendmail                              # /usr/sbin/sendmail
which sendmailconfig                        # /usr/sbin/sendmailconfig
man sendmail                                # Documentation
systemctl restart sendmail                  # As and when required

Verification (of ability to send)

echo "Subject: sendmail test" | sendmail -v <yourEmail>@gmail.com

The above took about 5 minutes. Then I wasted 5 hours... Don't forget to check your spam folder!

0
votes

There are several possibilities:

  1. You're facing a server problem. The server does not have any mail server. So your mail is not working, because your code is fine and mail is working with type.

  2. You are not getting the posted value. Try your code with a static value.

  3. Use SMTP mails to send mail...

0
votes

You can see your errors by:

error_reporting(E_ALL);

And my sample code is:

<?php
    use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
    require 'PHPMailer.php';
    require 'SMTP.php';
    require 'Exception.php';

    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $mailid = $_POST['mail'];
    $mail = new PHPMailer;
    $mail->IsSMTP();
    $mail->SMTPDebug = 0;                   // Set mailer to use SMTP
    $mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';         // Specify main and backup server
    $mail->Port = 587;                      // Set the SMTP port
    $mail->SMTPAuth = true;                 // Enable SMTP authentication
    $mail->Username = '[email protected]';  // SMTP username
    $mail->Password = 'password';           // SMTP password
    $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';              // Enable encryption, 'ssl' also accepted

    $mail->From = '[email protected]';
    $mail->FromName = 'name';
    $mail->AddAddress($mailid, $name);       // Name is optional
    $mail->IsHTML(true);                     // Set email format to HTML
    $mail->Subject = 'Here is the subject';
    $mail->Body    = 'Here is your message' ;
    $mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients';
    if (!$mail->Send()) {
       echo 'Message could not be sent.';
       echo 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
       exit;
    }
    echo 'Message has been sent';
?>
0
votes

If you're stuck with an app hosted on Hostgator, this is what solved my problem. Thanks a lot to the guy who posted the detailed solution. In case the link goes offline one day, there you have the summary:

  • Look for the sendmail path in your server. A simple way to check it, is to temporarily write the following code in a page which only you will access, to read the generated info: <?php phpinfo(); ?>. Open this page, and look for sendmail path. (Then, don't forget to remove this code!)
  • Problem and fix: if your sendmail path is saying only -t -i, then edit your server's php.ini and add the following line: sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i;

But, after being able to send mail with PHP mail() function, I learned that it sends not authenticated email, what created another issue. The emails were all falling in my Hotmail's junk mail box, and some emails were never delivered, which I guess is related to the fact that they are not authenticated. That's why I decided to switch from mail() to PHPMailer with SMTP, after all.

0
votes

It may be a problem with "From:" $email address in this part of the $headers:

From: \"$name\" <$email>

To try it out, send an email without the headers part, like:

mail('[email protected]', $subject, $message);

If that is a case, try using an email account that is already created at the system you are trying to send mail from.

0
votes
<?php

$to       = '[email protected]';
$subject  = 'Write your email subject here.';
$message  = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Title here</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Message here</p>
</body>
</html>
';

// Carriage return type (RFC).
$eol = "\r\n";

$headers  = "Reply-To: Name <[email protected]>".$eol;
$headers .= "Return-Path: Name <[email protected]>".$eol;
$headers .= "From: Name <[email protected]>".$eol;
$headers .= "Organization: Hostinger".$eol;
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1".$eol;
$headers .= "X-Priority: 3".$eol;
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP".phpversion().$eol;


mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

Sending HTML email While sending an email message you can specify a Mime version, content type and character set to send an HTML email.

Example The above example will send an HTML email message to [email protected]. You can code this program in such a way that it should receive all content from the user and then it should send an email.

-1
votes

For sending emails from gmail smtp and using php mail function, First you have to setup the sendmail in your local machine, Once it is set it mean you have setup your local smtp server, you will then be able to send emails from the account you set in your sendmail smtp account, in my case I followed the instructions from https://www.developerfiles.com/how-to-send-emails-from-localhost-mac-os-x-el-capitan/ and was able to setup the account,

-2
votes

Provided your sendmail system works, your code must be modified as follows:

<?php
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $message = $_POST['message'];

    $header ="
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\r\n
MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n
From: \"$name\" <$email>\r\n
Reply-To: [email protected]\r\n
X-Mailer: yoursite.com mailer\r\n
";

    $to = '"Contact" <[email protected]>'; 
    $subject = 'Customer Inquiry';
    $body =<<<EOB
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <body>
        $message
    </body>
</html>
EOB;

    if ($_POST['submit']) {
        if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $header) !== false) { 
            echo '<p>Your message has been sent!</p>';
        } else { 
            echo '<p>Something went wrong, go back and try again!</p>'; 
        }
    }
?>

This enables you to send HTML-based emails.

Of notable interest:

  1. we built a header multilines string (each line separated by\r\n);
  2. we added Content-type to express we return HTML so that you can compose better emails (you can add nay HTML code you want, including CSS, to your message as you would do in HTML page).

Note: <<<EOB syntax requires the last EOB marker begins as the beginning pf the line and has no space or whatever character after the semicolon.