I am using PHP on a website and I want to add emailing functionality.
I have WampServer installed.
How do I send an email using PHP?
338
votes
17 Answers
470
votes
It's possible using PHP's mail() function. Remember the mail function will not work on a local server.
<?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);
?>
Reference:
127
votes
You could also use PHPMailer class at https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer .
It allows you to use the mail function or use an smtp server transparently. It also handles HTML based emails and attachments so you don't have to write your own implementation.
The class is stable and it is used by many other projects like Drupal, SugarCRM, Yii, and Joomla!
Here is an example from the page above:
<?php
require 'PHPMailerAutoload.php';
$mail = new PHPMailer;
$mail->isSMTP(); // Set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = 'smtp1.example.com;smtp2.example.com'; // Specify main and backup SMTP servers
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // Enable SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = '[email protected]'; // SMTP username
$mail->Password = 'secret'; // SMTP password
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls'; // Enable encryption, 'ssl' also accepted
$mail->From = '[email protected]';
$mail->FromName = 'Mailer';
$mail->addAddress('[email protected]', 'Joe User'); // Add a recipient
$mail->addAddress('[email protected]'); // Name is optional
$mail->addReplyTo('[email protected]', 'Information');
$mail->addCC('[email protected]');
$mail->addBCC('[email protected]');
$mail->WordWrap = 50; // Set word wrap to 50 characters
$mail->addAttachment('/var/tmp/file.tar.gz'); // Add attachments
$mail->addAttachment('/tmp/image.jpg', 'new.jpg'); // Optional name
$mail->isHTML(true); // Set email format to HTML
$mail->Subject = 'Here is the subject';
$mail->Body = 'This is the HTML message body <b>in bold!</b>';
$mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients';
if(!$mail->send()) {
echo 'Message could not be sent.';
echo 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
echo 'Message has been sent';
}
46
votes
If you are interested in html formatted email, make sure to pass Content-type: text/html; in the header. Example:
// multiple recipients
$to = '[email protected]' . ', '; // note the comma
$to .= '[email protected]';
// subject
$subject = 'Birthday Reminders for August';
// message
$message = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Birthday Reminders for August</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Here are the birthdays upcoming in August!</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Person</th><th>Day</th><th>Month</th><th>Year</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Joe</td><td>3rd</td><td>August</td><td>1970</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sally</td><td>17th</td><td>August</td><td>1973</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
';
// 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";
// Additional headers
$headers .= 'To: Mary <[email protected]>, Kelly <[email protected]>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: Birthday Reminder <[email protected]>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Cc: [email protected]' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Bcc: [email protected]' . "\r\n";
// Mail it
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
For more details, check php mail function.
17
votes
Also look into the PEAR mail package Pear Mail Page
It seems to be a little more robust than the standard mail() function that is built in (if the standard function isn't adequate).
Here is an excerpt from this page showing how it is used. PEAR Mail send() usage
<?php
include('Mail.php');
$recipients = '[email protected]';
$headers['From'] = '[email protected]';
$headers['To'] = '[email protected]';
$headers['Subject'] = 'Test message';
$body = 'Test message';
$smtpinfo["host"] = "smtp.server.com";
$smtpinfo["port"] = "25";
$smtpinfo["auth"] = true;
$smtpinfo["username"] = "smtp_user";
$smtpinfo["password"] = "smtp_password";
// Create the mail object using the Mail::factory method
$mail_object =& Mail::factory("smtp", $smtpinfo);
$mail_object->send($recipients, $headers, $body);
?>
13
votes
For most projects, I use Swift mailer these days. It's a very flexible and elegant object-oriented approach to sending emails, created by the same people who gave us the popular Symfony framework and Twig template engine.
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 info on how to use Swift mailer.
9
votes
For future readers: Try this if other answers don't work (As was the case with me):
1.) Download PHPMailer, open the zip file and extract the folder to your project directory.
3.) Rename the extracted directory to PHPMailer and write the below code inside of your php script (the script must be outside of the PHPMailer folder)
<?php
// PHPMailer classes into the global namespace
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;
// Base files
require 'PHPMailer/src/Exception.php';
require 'PHPMailer/src/PHPMailer.php';
require 'PHPMailer/src/SMTP.php';
// create object of PHPMailer class with boolean parameter which sets/unsets exception.
$mail = new PHPMailer(true);
try {
$mail->isSMTP(); // using SMTP protocol
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com'; // SMTP host as gmail
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // enable smtp authentication
$mail->Username = '[email protected]'; // sender gmail host
$mail->Password = 'password'; // sender gmail host password
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls'; // for encrypted connection
$mail->Port = 587; // port for SMTP
$mail->setFrom('[email protected]', "Sender"); // sender's email and name
$mail->addAddress('[email protected]', "Receiver"); // receiver's email and name
$mail->Subject = 'Test subject';
$mail->Body = 'Test body';
$mail->send();
echo 'Message has been sent';
} catch (Exception $e) { // handle error.
echo 'Message could not be sent. Mailer Error: ', $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
?>
8
votes
Try this:
<?php
$to = "[email protected]";
$subject = "My subject";
$txt = "Hello world!";
$headers = "From: [email protected]" . "\r\n" .
"CC: [email protected]";
mail($to,$subject,$txt,$headers);
?>
7
votes
this is very basic method to send plain text email using mail function.
<?php
$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'This is subject';
$message = 'This is body of email';
$from = "From: FirstName LastName <[email protected]>";
mail($to,$subject,$message,$from);
7
votes
The core way to send emails from PHP is to use its built in mail() function, but there are a couple of ready-to-use SDKs which can ease the integration:
- Swiftmailer
- PHPMailer
- Pepipost (works over HTTP hence SMTP port block issue can be avoided)
- Sendmail
P.S. I am employed with Pepipost.
6
votes
The native PHP function mail() does not work for me. It issues the message:
503 This mail server requires authentication when attempting to send to a non-local e-mail address
So, I usually use PHPMailer package
I've downloaded the version 5.2.23 from: GitHub.
I've just picked 2 files and put them in my source PHP root
class.phpmailer.php
class.smtp.php
In PHP, the file needs to be added
require_once('class.smtp.php');
require_once('class.phpmailer.php');
After this, it's just code:
require_once('class.smtp.php');
require_once('class.phpmailer.php');
...
//----------------------------------------------
// Send an e-mail. Returns true if successful
//
// $to - destination
// $nameto - destination name
// $subject - e-mail subject
// $message - HTML e-mail body
// altmess - text alternative for HTML.
//----------------------------------------------
function sendmail($to,$nameto,$subject,$message,$altmess) {
$from = "[email protected]";
$namefrom = "yourname";
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->CharSet = 'UTF-8';
$mail->isSMTP(); // by SMTP
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // user and password
$mail->Host = "localhost";
$mail->Port = 25;
$mail->Username = $from;
$mail->Password = "yourpassword";
$mail->SMTPSecure = ""; // options: 'ssl', 'tls' , ''
$mail->setFrom($from,$namefrom); // From (origin)
$mail->addCC($from,$namefrom); // There is also addBCC
$mail->Subject = $subject;
$mail->AltBody = $altmess;
$mail->Body = $message;
$mail->isHTML(); // Set HTML type
//$mail->addAttachment("attachment");
$mail->addAddress($to, $nameto);
return $mail->send();
}
It works like a charm
5
votes
Full code example..
Try it once..
<?php
// Multiple recipients
$to = '[email protected], [email protected]'; // note the comma
// Subject
$subject = 'Birthday Reminders for August';
// Message
$message = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Birthday Reminders for August</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Here are the birthdays upcoming in August!</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Person</th><th>Day</th><th>Month</th><th>Year</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Johny</td><td>10th</td><td>August</td><td>1970</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sally</td><td>17th</td><td>August</td><td>1973</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
';
// To send HTML mail, the Content-type header must be set
$headers[] = 'MIME-Version: 1.0';
$headers[] = 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1';
// Additional headers
$headers[] = 'To: Mary <[email protected]>, Kelly <[email protected]>';
$headers[] = 'From: Birthday Reminder <[email protected]>';
$headers[] = 'Cc: [email protected]';
$headers[] = 'Bcc: [email protected]';
// Mail it
mail($to, $subject, $message, implode("\r\n", $headers));
?>
3
votes
You can use a mail web service such as Postmark, Sendgrid etc.
Sendgrid vs Postmark vs Amazon SES and other email/SMTP API providers?
Edit: I just use the Google Gmail API now. I had trouble sending reminder email to my employer's organization due to strict filters. But Gmail works as long as you don't spam people.
2
votes
Sent the Email with this script
<h2>Test Mail</h2>
<?php
if (!isset($_POST["submit"]))
{
?>
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"];?>">
From: <input type="text" name="from"><br>
Subject: <input type="text" name="subject"><br>
Message: <textarea rows="10" cols="40" name="message"></textarea><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Click To send mail">
</form>
<?php
}
else
{
if (isset($_POST["from"]))
{
$from = $_POST["from"]; // sender
$subject = $_POST["subject"];
$message = $_POST["message"];
$message = wordwrap($message, 70);
mail("[email protected]",$subject,$message,"From: $from\n");
echo "Thank you for sending an email";
}
}
?>
Once you press the Send email button, the email will be sent to [email protected]
1
votes
<?php
include "db_conn.php";//connection file
require "PHPMailerAutoload.php";// it will be in PHPMailer
require "class.smtp.php";// it will be in PHPMailer
require "class.phpmailer.php";// it will be in PHPMailer
$response = array();
$params = json_decode(file_get_contents("php://input"));
if(!empty($params->email_id)){
$email_id = $params->email_id;
$flag=false;
echo "something";
if(!filter_var($email_id, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL))
{
$response['ERROR']='EMAIL address format error';
echo json_encode($response,JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES);
return;
}
$sql="SELECT * from sales where email_id ='$email_id' ";
$result = mysqli_query($conn,$sql);
$count = mysqli_num_rows($result);
$to = "[email protected]";
$subject = "DEMO Subject";
$messageBody ="demo message .";
if($count ==0){
$response["valid"] = false;
$response["message"] = "User is not registered yet";
echo json_encode($response);
return;
}
else {
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // authentication enabled
$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'ssl';//turn on to send html email
// $mail->Host = "ssl://smtp.zoho.com";
$mail->Host = "p3plcpnl0749.prod.phx3.secureserver.net";//you can use gmail
$mail->Port = 465;
$mail->Username = "[email protected]";
$mail->Password = "demopassword";
$mail->SetFrom("[email protected]", "Any demo alert");
$mail->Subject = $subject;
$mail->Body = $messageBody;
$mail->AddAddress($to);
echo "yes";
if(!$mail->send()) {
echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
else {
echo "Message has been sent successfully";
}
}
}
else{
$response["valid"] = false;
$response["message"] = "Required field(s) missing";
echo json_encode($response);
}
?>
The above code is working for me.
1
votes
Tested 100% Work
Procedure for to send a user password via email using PHPMailer :
Step 1: First, Download PHPMailer Package from GitHub
You can just download the PHPMailer source files and include the required files manually.
You can download the ZIP file with the source code from the PHPMailer homepage[1], clicking on the “Clone or download” green button (on the right) and then selecting “Download ZIP”. Unzip the package inside the directory where you want to save the source files.
[1] https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer
Step 2: Then, open (From Gmail Address) Google Account and do the following steps:
- Disable Two factor password verification in google account.
- Turn on Less Security.
- Allow third party app.
Step 3: Try to use below Code (Note: Here, I have provided only the functional code for to send a user password via email using PHP and MySQL)
<?php
session_start();
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer; //add use in starting of the code
$db = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'root', '', '[Enter your Database Name]'); // connect to database
if (isset($_POST['forgot_btn'])) {
forgotpassword();
}
function forgotpassword(){
global $db;
$user_id = $_POST['user_id'];
$result = mysqli_query($db,"SELECT * FROM users where user_id='$user_id'");
$row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
$fetch_user_id=$row['user_id'];
$name=$row['name'];
$email_id=$row['email_id'];
$password=$row['password'];
if($user_id==$fetch_user_id) {
require '../PHPMailer/vendor/autoload.php'; //Please correctly mention the PHPMailer installed directory (Don't follow my directory)
$mail = new PHPMailer(TRUE);
try{
$mail->setFrom('[Enter your From Email_Address]', '[Enter Sender Name]');
$mail->addAddress($email_id, $name); //[To Email Address and Name]
$mail->Subject = 'Regarding Forgot Password';
$mail->Body = 'Hi '.$name.',Your Login Password is:'.$password.'';
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
$mail->SMTPAuth = TRUE;
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$mail->Username = '[Enter your From Email_Address]';
$mail->Password = '[Enter your From Email_Address -> Password]';
$mail->Port = 587;
if($mail->send())
{
echo "<script>alert('Password Sent Successfully');</script>";
}
else
{
echo "<script>alert('Please Check Your Internet Connection or From Email Address/Password or Wrong To Email Address');</script>";
}
}
catch (Exception $e)
{
echo "<script>alert('Please Check Your Internet Connection or From Email Address/Password or Wrong To Email Address');</script>";
}
}
}
?>
Refer to these docs[1] for further information:
0
votes
You can do a TESTE IF you NEED it do it through tinker as the following code
# SSH into droplet
# go to project
$ php artisan tinker
$ Mail::send('errors.401', [], function ($message) { $message->to('[email protected]')->subject('this works!'); });
# check your mailbox
0
votes
Email with plain text
<?php
$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'Your email subject here';
$message = 'Your message here';
// 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;
$headers .= "Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8".$eol;
$headers .= "X-Priority: 3".$eol;
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP".phpversion().$eol;
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
Email with html
<?php
$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'Your email subject here';
$message = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Your '.$to.' as your contact email address</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hi, there!</p>
<p>It is a long established fact that '.$to.' reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout</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);
Email with attachment
<?php
$url = "https://c.xkcd.com/random/comic/";
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
// Must be set to true so that PHP follows any "Location:" header.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
// $a will contain all headers.
$a = curl_exec($ch);
// This is what you need, it will return you the last effective URL.
$url = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL);
$str = file_get_contents($url.'info.0.json');
$json = json_decode($str, true);
// Get file info.
$imageTitle = $json['title'];
// Image url.
$imageUrl = $json['img'];
// Image alt text.
$imageAlt = $json['alt'];
// Image file.
$imageFile = file_get_contents($imageUrl);
$tokens = explode('/', $imageUrl);
// File name.
$fileName = $tokens[(count($tokens) - 1)];
// File extension.
$ext = explode(".", $fileName);
// File type.
$fileType = $ext[1];
// File size.
$header = get_headers($imageUrl, true);
$fileSize = $header['Content-Length'];
$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = "Enjoy reading today's most interesting XKCD comics";
$message = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Your email '.$to.' is listed in our XKCD comics subscribers.</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>'.$imageTitle.'</h1>
<img src='.$imageUrl.' alt='.$imageAlt.'>
</body>
</html>';
// File.
$content = chunk_split(base64_encode($imageFile));
// A random hash will be necessary to send mixed content.
$semiRand = md5(time());
$mimeBoundary = '==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semiRand}x';
// 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;
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"{$mimeBoundary}\"".$eol;
$headers .= 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit'.$eol;
$headers .= 'X-Priority: 3'.$eol;
$headers .= 'X-Mailer: PHP'.phpversion().$eol;
// Message.
$body = '--'.$mimeBoundary.$eol;
$body .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"UTF-8\"".$eol;
$body .= 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit'.$eol;
$body .= $message.$eol;
// Attachment.
$body .= '--'.$mimeBoundary.$eol;
$body .= "Content-Type:{$fileType}; name=\"{$fileName}\"".$eol;
$body .= 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64'.$eol;
$body .= "Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"{$fileName}\"".$eol;
$body .= 'X-Attachment-Id: '.rand(1000, 99999).$eol;
$body .= $content.$eol;
$body .= '--'.$mimeBoundary.'--';
$success = mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers);
if ($success === false) {
echo '<h3>Failure</h3>';
echo '<p>Failed to send email to '.$to.'</p>';
} else {
echo '<p>Your email has been sent to '.$to.' successfully.</p>';
}
Email verification
<?php
function verifyLink() {
require 'db-connection.php';
$mysqli->select_db($dbname);
$sql = "SELECT `email`, `hash` FROM `Users` ORDER BY `active`";
$result = $mysqli->query($sql);
$row = $result->fetch_row();
if ($_SERVER['HTTPS'] !== '' && $_SERVER['HTTPS'] === 'on') {
return '<a href="https://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].'/verify.php?email='.$row[0].'&hash='.$row[1].'">Verify contact email</a>';
} else {
return '<a href="http://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].'/verify.php?email='.$row[0].'&hash='.$row[1].'">Verify contact email</a>';
}
$mysqli->close();
}
$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'Verify your XKCD contact email address';
$message = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Verify '.$to.' as your contact email address</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hi, there!</p>
<p>Please verify that you want to use '.$to.' as the contact email address for your XKCD account</p>
<p>XKCD will use this email to tell you about interesting comics updates.</p>
<div>'.verifyLink().'</div>
<h3>Do not recognise this activity?</h3>
<p>If you did not add '.$to.' to your XKCD account, ignore this email and that address will not be added to your XKCD account. Someone may have made a mistake while typing their own email address.</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);
