How To Send Emails In PHP Using PHPMailer

    RahulBy 2 Mins ReadUpdated:

    All the programming languages provide functions for sending emails. PHP also provides mail() functions to send emails. But the main point is to increase email delivery to inboxes successfully. While sending simple emails the chances of getting email spam increase. Also, a simple PHP mail function has limited options for mail formatting and sending properly. To increase email deliverability and speed we are going to use PHPMailer, which provides lots of options for sending emails. It also provides an option to send emails from SMTP servers.

    Step 1 – Setup PHPMailer

    PHP Mailer is a third-party software that lets you send emails from your website. This software has been around for a long time and is still being used by many PHP developers. It works with many different SMTP servers and is easy to install and configure. However, it’s not as secure as PHPMailer, and you should avoid using it if possible.

    Use composer to install the PHPMailer module in your application.

    composer require phpmailer/phpmailer

    Step 2 – Sending Emails using PHP and PHPMailer

    Now create a simple PHP script sendMail.php in your web document root and add the below content. The below script is using Gmail SMTP server for sending emails. You may use any other SMTP server like Amazon SES, Sendgrid, Mailchimp or Mandril App, etc.

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    <?php
     
    use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
    use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;
    require 'vendor/autoload.php';
     
    $mail = new PHPMailer(true);
    try {
        //Server settings
        $mail->SMTPDebug = 2;
        $mail->isSMTP();
        $mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
        $mail->SMTPAuth = true;
        $mail->Username = '[email protected]';
        $mail->Password = '_password_';
        $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
        $mail->Port = 587;
     
        $mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'Admin');
        $mail->addAddress('[email protected]', 'Recipient1');
        //$mail->addAddress('[email protected]');
        $mail->addReplyTo('[email protected]', 'noreply');
        //$mail->addCC('[email protected]');
        //$mail->addBCC('[email protected]');
     
        //Attachments
        //$mail->addAttachment('/backup/myfile.tar.gz');
     
        //Content
        $mail->isHTML(true);
        $mail->Subject = 'Test Mail Subject!';
        $mail->Body    = 'This is SMTP Email Test';
     
        $mail->send();
        echo 'Message has been sent';
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        echo 'Message could not be sent.';
        echo 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
    }

    Now you can run this script from the command line interface or access it in a browser.

    Conclusion

    PHP is a great programming language with a large community and lots of support. Unfortunately, sending an email from a PHP application can be difficult. That’s why we’ve prepared this blog post to help you choose the best way to send emails from your PHP application. There are many options for sending emails in PHP and we’ve covered them all in this blog post. Mailing service is a good choice if you want to send emails to a small number of users. If you need to send emails to a large number of users, you should rent an SMTP server from a third-party company. Amazon SES is a good choice if you want to send emails in bulk and you have a budget. Sendmail is a good choice if you have your own server. And if you’re using PHP, then you can use PHPMailer or PHP Mailer.

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    9 Comments

    1. nagaraj on

      I am also receiving the same blank screen when i run the sendMail.php. The apache error log entry is
      “GET /sendMail.php HTTP/1.1” 500 185 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0”

      Reply
    3. Oliver Russell on

      It is also possible to use PHPMailer to send emails from local web server. For this you will have to define following variables

      $mail->From
      $mail->FromName
      $mail->addAddress
      $mail->isHTML(true)
      $mail->Subject
      $mail->Body
      $mail->AltBody

      Source: How to use PHPmailer

      Reply
    5. Nathaviê on

      Why I need this myfile.tar.gz? It’s making and error. I suppose it is because my server is Windows, but I don’t know what to do anyway..

      “Could not access file: /backup/myfile.tar.gz
      A mensagem não pode ser enviada.Mailer Error: Could not access file: /backup/myfile.tar.gz”

      Reply
    6. Amit on

      Hi Pachak,

      I have setup php 7 and try to use phpmailer 5.2 version. But its provide following error :
      Connection: opening to host(this is my email host):465
      Mailer Error: SMTP connect() failed.

      I have used 465,25 and 587.

      Is phpmailer 5.2 not compatible with PHP 7?

      Looking for your help.

      Best,
      Amit

      Reply

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