Send php smtp email with mail()

Question

I try to send email with a SMTP server. Is it possible to send message with mail() function? Or must i to use PHPMailer or Pear?

$to = "somebody@example.com";
$subject = "My subject";
$txt = "Hello world!";
$headers = "From: webmaster@example.com" . "\r\n" .
"CC: somebodyelse@example.com";
mail($to,$subject,$txt,$headers);

Is it possible like:

$headers .= "Host: myhost.example.com\r\n";
$headers .= "User: myusername\r\n";
$headers .= "Password: mypassword\r\n";

? I'm looking for possible simple versions.

Windows does not come with a Mail Server, so you might be better using something like `phpMailer` — RiggsFolly, Aug 16 '18 at 14:50
Yes, it is possible to send email with `mail()`. Are you having problems with this code? If so, what exactly is the problem you are seeing? — John Conde, Aug 16 '18 at 15:16

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 16 '18 at 15:23

On Windows you can specify a server to use for SMTP in php.ini, but not on *nix where sendmail or something sendmail-compliant is expected to be found

What you can do on a *nix system is set up postfix, Exim, or some other smtpd to use as a authenticated relay to send mail via some other SMTP server.

But then this is rapidly heading towards unix.stackexchange.com or perhaps superuser or serverfault

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 16 '18 at 15:24

0

Are you trying to sent emails through a SMTP server that requires authentication ? If so, you can't use the native mail() function :
php.ini & SMTP= - how do you pass username & password

answered Aug 16 '18 at 15:24

user144018

1

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 16 '18 at 15:25

Plenty of working examples in the PHP Documentation

e.g.

<?php
$to      = 'nobody@example.com';
$subject = 'the subject';
$message = 'hello';
$headers = array(
    'From' => 'webmaster@example.com',
    'Reply-To' => 'webmaster@example.com',
    'X-Mailer' => 'PHP/' . phpversion()
);

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>

To improve deliverability you may wish to set the 'Envelope From' address by passing the -f parameter to sendmail as follows:

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers, '-f webmaster@example.com');

You should also check that an SPF record is setup on your domain allowing the web server IP address to send mail on behalf of the domain.

Send php smtp email with mail()

3 Answers3