Sending Email with PHP

In this lesson, you will learn how to send emails with PHP using both the built-in mail() function and the PHPMailer extension.

Lesson Goals

To send emails using PHP's built-in mail() function.
To send email using PHPMailer, a PHP extension with more features than mail().

mail()

PHP has a built-in mail() function that makes it easy to send email.

Mail Parameters
Parameters	Description
`To`	The address to send the email to.
`Subject`	The email's subject.
`Message`	The body of the email.
`Additional Headers`	Optional. Additional headers (e.g, From, Reply-To)
`Additional Parameters`	Optional. Any additional parameters you may want to send to your mail server.

Note: when running any script that sends out emails, you will need a mail server and access credentials. Check with your System Administrator or with your Internet Hosting Service Provider to get the mail server information.

Code Sample:

Email/Demos/Mail.php

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Mail()</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
	if (!array_key_exists('Submitted',$_POST))
	{
?>
		<form method="post" action="Mail.php">
		<input type="hidden" name="Submitted" value="true">
		Mail Server: <input type="text" name="Host" size="25"><br>
		To: <input type="text" name="To" size="25"><br>
		From: <input type="text" name="From" size="25"><br>
		Subject: <input type="text" name="Subject" size="25"><br>
		<textarea name="Message" cols="50" rows="10"></textarea><br>
		<input type="submit" value="Send Email">
		</form>
<?php
	}
	else
	{
		ini_set('SMTP',$_POST['Host']);
		$to = $_POST['To'];
		$from = 'From: ' . $_POST['From'];
		$subject = $_POST['Subject'];
		$message = $_POST['Message'];
	
		if(mail($to,$subject,$message,$from))
		{
			echo "Message Sent";
		}
		else
		{
			 echo "Message Not Sent";
		}
	}
?>
</body>
</html>

For this example to work, you will need to have a mail server set up on your server.

The first time a visitor hits the page, he'll be presented with a form. When the user fills out and submits that form, the mail() function will attempt to send an email to the address the user entered.

Note that the mail server is set with the ini_set() function, which is used to temporarily change configuration settings. You can set the default mail server in the php.ini file with the SMTP setting.

Shortcomings of mail()

The mail() function has many limitations.

No support for SMTP authentication.
Difficult to send HTML-formatted emails.
Difficult to add attachments.

Luckily, there are extensions that do provide these features.

PHPMailer

A very good email extension is PHPMailer, which is available for free at http://phpmailer.worxware.com. We will use PHPMailer in our examples and exercises. The following tables show some of the more common methods and properties of PHPMailer.

PHPMailer Methods
Method	Description
`AddAddress()`	Adds a "To" address.
`AddAttachment()`	Adds an attachment from a path on the filesystem.
`AddBCC()`	Adds a "bcc" address.
`AddCC()`	Adds a "cc" address.
`AddReplyTo()`	Adds a "Reply-to" address.
`IsHTML()`	Sets message type to HTML.
`IsSMTP()`	Sets Mailer to send message using SMTP.
`Send()`	Creates message and assigns Mailer. If the message is not sent successfully then it returns false.

PHPMailer Properties
Property	Description
`AltBody`	Sets the text-only body of the message.
`Body`	Sets the Body of the message. This can be either an HTML or text body.
`ErrorInfo`	Holds the most recent mailer error message.
`From`	Sets the From email address for the message.
`FromName`	Sets the From name of the message.
`Host`	Sets the SMTP hosts. All hosts must be separated by semicolons.
`Password`	Sets SMTP password.
`SMTPAuth`	Sets SMTP authentication. Utilizes the Username and Password properties.
`Subject`	Sets the Subject of the message.
`Username`	Sets SMTP username.
`WordWrap`	Sets word wrapping on the body of the message to a given number of characters.

Code Sample:

Email/Demos/PHPMailer.php

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>PHPMailer</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
	if (!array_key_exists('Submitted',$_POST))
	{
?>
		<form method="post" action="PHPMailer.php">
		<input type="hidden" name="Submitted" value="true"><br>
		Mail Server: <input type="text" name="Host" size="25"><br>
		If authentication is required:<br>
		Username: <input type="text" name="Username" size="25"><br>
		Password: <input type="password" name="Password" size="10">
		<hr>
		To: <input type="text" name="To" size="25"><br>
		From Email: <input type="text" name="From" size="25"><br>
		From Name: <input type="text" name="FromName" size="25"><br>
		Subject: <input type="text" name="Subject" size="25"><br>
		<textarea name="Message" cols="50" rows="10"></textarea><br>
		Using HTML: <input type="checkbox" name="HTML">
		<input type="submit" value="Send Email">
		</form>
<?php
	}
	else
	{
		require("class.phpmailer.php");
		$to = $_POST['To'];
		$from = $_POST['From'];
		$fromName = $_POST['FromName'];
		$subject = $_POST['Subject'];
		$message = $_POST['Message'];
		$host = $_POST['Host'];
		
		if (array_key_exists('HTML',$_POST))
		{
			$html = true;
		}
		else
		{
			$html = false;
		}
		
		$mail = new PHPMailer();
					
		$mail->IsSMTP(); // send via SMTP
		$mail->Host = $host; //SMTP server
		
		if (strlen($_POST['Username']))
		{
			$mail->SMTPAuth=true;
            $mail->Username=$_POST['Username'];
			$mail->Password=$_POST['Password'];
		}
		else
		{
			$mail->SMTPAuth=false;
		} 
		
		$mail->From = $from;
		$mail->FromName = $fromName;
		$mail->AddAddress($to);
		$mail->AddReplyTo($from);
		
		$mail->WordWrap = 50; // set word wrap
		$mail->IsHTML($html);
		
		$mail->Subject  = $subject;
		$mail->Body = $message;
		
		if($mail->Send())
		{
			echo "Message Sent";
		}
		else
		{
			 echo "Message Not Sent<br>";
			 echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
		}
	}
?>
</body>
</html>

As you can see, PHPMailer comes with a full set of intuitive methods and properties that make sending emails very easy.

PEAR also provides an email package at PEAR::Mail_Mime. It has similar functionality to PHPMailer.

Continue to the next lesson on File System Management »

Sending Email with PHP

Lesson Goals

Lesson Activities

mail()

Code Sample:

Shortcomings of mail()

PHPMailer

Code Sample:

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