Difficulties in Sending Email using PHP

Question

Based on the code below, used for sending email:

<?php
    $from     =  $_POST['email'];
    $to       = '[email protected]';
    $subject  =  $_POST['subject'];
    $message  =  $_POST['content'];
    $headers  = 'From: ' . $from . "\r\n" .
            'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n" .
            'Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8';
    if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers))
       echo "Email sent";
    else
       echo "Email sending failed";
?>

And the form:

<form action="/mail/send-mail.php" method="post">
    <div class="form-group">
        <input type="text" class="form-control" name="name" id="contact-name" placeholder="Nome">
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
         <input type="email" class="form-control" name="email" id="contact-email" placeholder="Email">
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
         <input type="text" class="form-control" name="subject" id="contact-subject" placeholder="Assunto">
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
         <textarea class="form-control" name="content" id="contact-content" placeholder="Mensagem" rows="3"></textarea>
    </div>
    <button type="submit" class="btn btn-default text-uppercase" id="contactButton"> Enviar</button>
 </form>

The return is always false.

Answer 1

If the message always appears Email sending failed and the false which you refer to is the function mail, then the reason is your server configuration.

Note that if you are trying to use this in http://localhost and not a real server the function mail will not work and will really always return false, If you are trying to set up your own server you will need to set up SMTP in php.ini:

• Windows

  If it is Windows you will need an application called sendmail which usually comes already installed with linux (on Windows or sendmail comes with Xampp package (Wamp/zwamp/easyphp does not have such software in package)

  • Search and edit the sendmail.ini (generally in Xampp for windows C:\xampp\sendmail):

    [sendmail]
    smtp_server=smtp.gmail.com
    smtp_port = 587
    default_domain = gmail.com
    
    auth_username=[seuemail]@gmail.com
    auth_password=[suasenha]
    

  • Edit the php.ini:

    [mail function]
    sendmail_path = "C:\xampp\sendmail\sendmail.exe -t"
    SMTP = smtp.gmail.com
    smtp_port = 587
    

• Mac OSX

  On Mac OSX Yosemite I believe to be something like (as this response from Soen):

  [mail function]
  sendmail_path = "env -i /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i"
  SMTP = smtp.gmail.com
  smtp_port = 587
  

• Setting up the Gmail

  To use Gmail just access the link https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps and to free the access select Active where it is written Access to less secure apps.

  For more details of Gmail follow the instructions on this link.

Alternative

Alternatively you can use Phpmailer (access should be released as described above), example:

<?php
require 'PHPMailerAutoload.php';

$mail = new PHPMailer;

//$mail->SMTPDebug = 3;                               // Enable verbose debug output

$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 TLS encryption, `ssl` also accepted
$mail->Port = 587;                                    // TCP port to connect to

$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->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';
}

For other problems with Phpmailer read the link Phpmailer/wiki

Answer 2

Whenever I need it I send with Phpmailer !

Phpmailer 2.3 : Link to the class

<?php

require("phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php");


$mail = new PHPMailer();

$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->Host = "ssl://smtp.gmail.com";
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->SMTPDebug = 0;
$mail->Port = 465;
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$mail->Username = '[email protected]';
$mail->Password = 'sua_senha';

$mail->From = "[email protected]";
$mail->Sender = "[email protected]";
$mail->FromName = "Nome do remetente";

$mail->AddAddress('[email protected]', 'Assunto da mensagem');

//$mail->AddCC('[email protected]', 'Aqui o nome');
//$mail->AddBCC('emailcomcopia@oculta', 'Aqui o nome');

$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->CharSet = 'utf-8';

$mail->Subject = "Assunto da Mensagem"; // Assunto da mensagem
$mail->Body = "Mensagem";


// Anexos
//$mail->AddAttachment("caminho/para/arquivo.pdf", "novo_nome.pdf");

$enviado = $mail->Send();

$mail->ClearAllRecipients();
$mail->ClearAttachments();

if ($enviado) {
    echo "E-mail enviado com sucesso!";
} else {
    echo "Não foi possível enviar o e-mail.";
    echo "Informações do erro:" . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}

Answer 3

I use frameworks. They often have their own mechanisms that do not use the PHP mail function.

The problem with php’s mail function is that you have to tinker with a configuration file. I always have preferences for using libraries that use SMTP.

For example, this is the case of Nette\Email.

Very simply, you can send an email.

use Nette\Mail\Message;
use Nette\Mail\SmtpMailer;

$mail = new Message;
$mail->setFrom('John <[email protected]>')
    ->addTo('[email protected]')
    ->addTo('[email protected]')
    ->setSubject('Order Confirmation')
    ->setHTMLBody("<b>Hello</b>, Your order has been accepted.");


$mailer = new SmtpMailer(array(
        'host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',
        'username' => '[email protected]',
        'password' => '*****',
        'secure' => 'ssl',
));
$mailer->send($mail);

This library can be easily installed via Composer.

composer require nette/mail