Send Email with PHPmailer

Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to send email with PHPMailer with an HTML form.

Many websites and applications rely heavily on email since it makes it possible to notify users, connect with users, and more. Even if the built-in PHP mail function offers the bare minimum in email capabilities, your needs might not be met. In this situation, PHPMailer is useful.

What is phpmailer

PHPMailer is a popular open-source PHP library for sending emails. It provides a simple and efficient way of sending emails from a PHP script, with a lot of advanced features, such as supporting multiple transport methods, including SMTP, Sendmail, and mail(), providing support for attachments and HTML emails, and much more.

Install PHPMailer

Here’s how to install PHPMailer:

Download PHPMailer:

You can download PHPMailer from its official website (https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer) or through composer. If you’re downloading it manually, unzip the downloaded file.

Include PHPMailer in Your PHP Script:

You can include the required PHPMailer files in your PHP script using the following code:

require 'src/Exception.php';
require 'src/PHPMailer.php';
require 'src/SMTP.php';

use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;

HTML Form

This form will allow the user to enter the recipient’s email address, the subject of the email, and the email message.

<form action="send_email.php" method="post">
  <label for="email">To:</label>
  <input type="email" id="email" name="email" required>

  <label for="subject">Subject:</label>
  <input type="text" id="subject" name="subject" required>

  <label for="message">Message:</label>
  <textarea id="message" name="message" rows="5" required></textarea>

  <input type="submit" value="Send Email">
</form>

PHP Script

Create the PHP Script: This script will be responsible for processing the form data and sending the email using PHPMailer.

<?php
  use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
  use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;

  require 'src/Exception.php';
  require 'src/PHPMailer.php';
  require 'src/SMTP.php';

  if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
    $to = $_POST['email'];
    $subject = $_POST['subject'];
    $message = $_POST['message'];

    $mail = new PHPMailer(true);

    try {
      $mail->isSMTP();
      $mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com';
      $mail->SMTPAuth = true;
      $mail->Username = '[email protected]';
      $mail->Password = 'secret';
      $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
      $mail->Port = 587;

      $mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'Sender Name');
      $mail->addAddress($to);

      $mail->isHTML(true);
      $mail->Subject = $subject;
      $mail->Body = $message;

      $mail->send();
      echo "Email sent successfully";
    } catch (Exception $e) {
      echo "Failed to send email: {$mail->ErrorInfo}";
    }
  }
?>

Note: Replace the placeholders in the script such as smtp.example.com and [email protected]

Save the PHP Script: Save the script with a .php extension, for example, send_email.php

Test the HTML Form: Load the HTML form in your browser and test it by entering the recipient’s email address, subject, and message. Submit the form and check if the email was sent successfully.

In this example, the email is sent using SMTP. You can also send an email using other methods supported by PHPMailer, such as Sendmail or the mail() function. Detailed documentation is available on the official website.

Advantage of PHPMailer

Disadvantage of PHPMailer

Options that developers can utilize in PHPMailer

PHPMailer offers a wide variety of features and options for developers, as outlined in the comprehensive documentation accessible from the official website. Experienced users can make use of even more advanced features.

Differentiate between the default PHP Mail function and PHPMailer

Here’s a comparison between the default PHP mail function and PHPMailer.