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PHP - Sending Emails Using PHP

PHP must be configured to send emails by specifying settings like the SMTP server and sender's email address. It provides the mail() function to send plain text emails by defining recipient, subject, and message. To send HTML emails, additional headers specifying MIME version, content-type as text/html, and character set must be set. Attachments can be sent by defining the message as multipart/mixed with boundary separators for the text content and each attachment.

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Fetsum Lakew
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47 views

PHP - Sending Emails Using PHP

PHP must be configured to send emails by specifying settings like the SMTP server and sender's email address. It provides the mail() function to send plain text emails by defining recipient, subject, and message. To send HTML emails, additional headers specifying MIME version, content-type as text/html, and character set must be set. Attachments can be sent by defining the message as multipart/mixed with boundary separators for the text content and each attachment.

Uploaded by

Fetsum Lakew
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PHP - Sending Emails using PHP

PHP must be configured correctly in the php.ini file with the details of how your system
sends email. Open php.ini file available in /etc/ directory and find the section
headed [mail function].

Windows users should ensure that two directives are supplied. The first is called SMTP
that defines your email server address. The second is called sendmail_from which
defines your own email address.

The configuration for Windows should look something like this −


[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
SMTP = smtp.secureserver.net

; For win32 only


sendmail_from = [email protected]

Linux users simply need to let PHP know the location of their sendmail application.
The path and any desired switches should be specified to the sendmail_path directive.

The configuration for Linux should look something like this −


[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
SMTP =

; For win32 only


sendmail_from =

; For Unix only


sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i

Now you are ready to go −

Sending plain text email


PHP makes use of mail() function to send an email. This function requires three
mandatory arguments that specify the recipient's email address, the subject of the the
message and the actual message additionally there are other two optional parameters.
mail( to, subject, message, headers, parameters );

Here is the description for each parameters.

Sr.N Parameter & Description


o

1
to
Required. Specifies the receiver / receivers of the email

2
subject
Required. Specifies the subject of the email. This parameter cannot contain any
newline characters

3
message
Required. Defines the message to be sent. Each line should be separated with a
LF (\n). Lines should not exceed 70 characters

4
headers
Optional. Specifies additional headers, like From, Cc, and Bcc. The additional
headers should be separated with a CRLF (\r\n)

5
parameters
Optional. Specifies an additional parameter to the send mail program

As soon as the mail function is called PHP will attempt to send the email then it will
return true if successful or false if it is failed.

Multiple recipients can be specified as the first argument to the mail() function in a
comma separated list.

Sending HTML email


When you send a text message using PHP then all the content will be treated as
simple text. Even if you will include HTML tags in a text message, it will be displayed
as simple text and HTML tags will not be formatted according to HTML syntax. But
PHP provides option to send an HTML message as actual HTML message.

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

Following example will send an HTML email message to [email protected]


copying it 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.
<html>

<head>
<title>Sending HTML email using PHP</title>
</head>

<body>

<?php
$to = "[email protected]";
$subject = "This is subject";

$message = "<b>This is HTML message.</b>";


$message .= "<h1>This is headline.</h1>";

$header = "From:[email protected] \r\n";


$header .= "Cc:[email protected] \r\n";
$header .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$header .= "Content-type: text/html\r\n";

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

if( $retval == true ) {


echo "Message sent successfully...";
}else {
echo "Message could not be sent...";
}
?>

</body>
</html>

Sending attachments with email


To send an email with mixed content requires to set Content-type header
tomultipart/mixed. Then text and attachment sections can be specified
within boundaries.

A boundary is started with two hyphens followed by a unique number which can not
appear in the message part of the email. A PHP function md5() is used to create a 32
digit hexadecimal number to create unique number. A final boundary denoting the
email's final section must also end with two hyphens.
<?php
// request variables // important
$from = $_REQUEST["from"];
$emaila = $_REQUEST["emaila"];
$filea = $_REQUEST["filea"];

if ($filea) {
function mail_attachment ($from , $to, $subject, $message,
$attachment){
$fileatt = $attachment; // Path to the file
$fileatt_type = "application/octet-stream"; // File Type

$start = strrpos($attachment, '/') == -1 ?


strrpos($attachment, '//') : strrpos($attachment, '/')
+1;

$fileatt_name = substr($attachment, $start,


strlen($attachment)); // Filename that will be used for
the
file as the attachment

$email_from = $from; // Who the email is from


$subject = "New Attachment Message";

$email_subject = $subject; // The Subject of the email


$email_txt = $message; // Message that the email has in it
$email_to = $to; // Who the email is to

$headers = "From: ".$email_from;


$file = fopen($fileatt,'rb');
$data = fread($file,filesize($fileatt));
fclose($file);

$msg_txt="\n\n You have recieved a new attachment message


from $from";
$semi_rand = md5(time());
$mime_boundary = "==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x";
$headers .= "\nMIME-Version: 1.0\n" . "Content-Type:
multipart/mixed;\n" . "
boundary=\"{$mime_boundary}\"";

$email_txt .= $msg_txt;

$email_message .= "This is a multi-part message in MIME


format.\n\n" .
"--{$mime_boundary}\n" . "Content-Type:text/html;
charset = \"iso-8859-1\"\n" . "Content-Transfer-
Encoding: 7bit\n\n" .
$email_txt . "\n\n";
$data = chunk_split(base64_encode($data));

$email_message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n" . "Content-Type:


{$fileatt_type};\n" .
" name = \"{$fileatt_name}\"\n" . //"Content-
Disposition: attachment;\n" .
//" filename = \"{$fileatt_name}\"\n" . "Content-
Transfer-Encoding:
base64\n\n" . $data . "\n\n" . "--
{$mime_boundary}--\n";

$ok = mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message,


$headers);

if($ok) {
echo "File Sent Successfully.";
unlink($attachment); // delete a file after attachment
sent.
}else {
die("Sorry but the email could not be sent. Please go
back and try again!");
}
}
move_uploaded_file($_FILES["filea"]["tmp_name"],
'temp/'.basename($_FILES['filea']['name']));

mail_attachment("$from", "[email protected]",
"subject", "message", ("temp/".$_FILES["filea"]["name"]));
}
?>

<html>
<head>

<script language = "javascript" type = "text/javascript">


function CheckData45() {
with(document.filepost) {
if(filea.value ! = "") {
document.getElementById('one').innerText =
"Attaching File ... Please Wait";
}
}
}
</script>

</head>
<body>

<table width = "100%" height = "100%" border = "0"


cellpadding = "0" cellspacing = "0">
<tr>
<td align = "center">
<form name = "filepost" method = "post"
action = "file.php" enctype = "multipart/form-
data" id = "file">

<table width = "300" border = "0" cellspacing =


"0"
cellpadding = "0">

<tr valign = "bottom">


<td height = "20">Your Name:</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><input name = "from" type = "text"
id = "from" size = "30"></td>
</tr>

<tr valign = "bottom">


<td height = "20">Your Email Address:</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td class = "frmtxt2"><input name =
"emaila"
type = "text" id = "emaila" size =
"30"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td height = "20" valign = "bottom">Attach
File:</td>
</tr>

<tr valign = "bottom">


<td valign = "bottom"><input name = "filea"
type = "file" id = "filea" size =
"16"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td height = "40" valign = "middle"><input
name = "Reset2" type = "reset" id =
"Reset2" value = "Reset">
<input name = "Submit2" type = "submit"
value = "Submit" onClick = "return
CheckData45()"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

<center>
<table width = "400">

<tr>
<td id = "one">
</td>
</tr>

</table>
</center>

</td>
</tr>
</table>

</body>
</html>

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