Mail goes to spam folder ( php mail function )

Question

This code what i am using to send mail but unfortunately mail goes to spam folder. I tried both gmail and hotmail but case is same . php code is:

<?php
if($_POST)
{
//check if its an ajax request, exit if not
if(!isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) AND strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) != 'xmlhttprequest') {
    die();
} 

$to_Email       = "zinan09@gmail.com"; //Replace with recipient email address
$subject        = 'My email from Somebody out there...'; //Subject line for emails

//check $_POST vars are set, exit if any missing
if(!isset($_POST["userName"]) || !isset($_POST["userEmail"]) || !isset($_POST["userMessage"]))
{
    die();
}

//Sanitize input data using PHP filter_var().
$user_Name        = filter_var($_POST["userName"], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$user_Email       = filter_var($_POST["userEmail"], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
$user_Message     = filter_var($_POST["userMessage"], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

//additional php validation
if(strlen($user_Name)<4) // If length is less than 4 it will throw an HTTP error.
{
    header('HTTP/1.1 500 Name is too short or empty!');
    exit();
}
if(!filter_var($user_Email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) //email validation
{
    header('HTTP/1.1 500 Please enter a valid email!');
    exit();
}
if(strlen($user_Message)<5) //check emtpy message
{
    header('HTTP/1.1 500 Too short message! Please enter something.');
    exit();
}

//proceed with PHP email.
$headers = 'From: '.$user_Email.'';

@$sentMail = mail($to_Email, $subject, $user_Message .'  -'.$user_Name, $headers);

if(!$sentMail)
{
    header('HTTP/1.1 500 Could not send mail! Sorry..');
    exit();
}else{
    echo 'Hi '.$user_Name .', Thank you for your email! ';
    echo 'Your email has already arrived in my Inbox, all I need to do is Check it.';
}
}
?>

Is there any missing function which i need to add or modify to solve this problem

Well for one, there's no way in hell it can be from the user's own email. This is likely tripping spam detectors. — Daedalus, Oct 25 '14 at 08:38
A spamm function within a mail client looks for specific keywords within a mail, if these words are matched, it will be moved to the spamm folder. You may want to revise your content you are sending with the email. Also the sender is important. I would use something like info@ <-- email client from your website, or no-reply@ <-- email client from your website, instead of your own email — Dorvalla, Oct 25 '14 at 08:38

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 25 '14 at 08:43

Try to set From header to actual server domain address (i.e. no-reply@mysite.com), and move user email to Reply-To header. That would calm anti-spam filters down.

$headers = 'From: no-reply@mysite.com' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Reply-To: '.$user_Email.'';

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 25 '14 at 08:47

As I said in the comments, you might wanna look at your content.

Also, your email sender is the same as the email receiver. I would revise that, making it a static email you cant reply to.

Also your mail has 5 variables, not sure why, but if you use headers, you can tuck them in there.

example.

    $message = wordwrap($message, 70);  
    $to = "info@somewebsite.com";  // change this propperty for your own email
    $subject = "Een gebruiker heeft een vraag of opmerking";

    $body = 'yadidyadi'. $message ;
    $headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
    $headers .= "Content-type:text/html;charset=UTF-8" . "\r\n";
    $headers .= "From: noreply@jellyfishwebdesign.nl"; // make this one static.. i made mine noreply

    if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $headers)) {
       echo 'yay, mail send';
    }

edit

just to point out, and this is not related to your question, your first check, the if($_POST) is kinda not relevant, since you wanna check if a certain button is pressed. if you put different code in this file for different processes, this whole mail thing will be fired anyway, despite if you are editing a post, entering something in the database ... anything this file will be called on.

Mail goes to spam folder ( php mail function )

2 Answers2

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