PHP/Mail

Sending email with PHP:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14456673/sending-email-with-php-from-an-smtp-server#14456761

Procedure:

• Open port 465
• Put PHPMailer on your PHP include path
• From the PHP script you want to send email from, include PHPMailer
• Drop in your SMTP credentials
• Now you're able to send off emails

Namecheap SMTP Mail Settings

Namecheap:

• Username: your email address
• Password: password for this email account
• Incoming/outgoing servers name: mail.privateemail.com
• Incoming server type: IMAP or POP3
• Incoming server (IMAP): 993 port for SSL
• Incoming server (POP3): 995 port for SSL
• Outgoing server (SMTP): 465 port for SSL

Installing PHPMailer

Visit PHPMailer: https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer

Copy the contents of the PHPMailer folder into one of the include_path directories specified in your PHP configuration

Opening Port

The following iptables rule will keep track of outgoing packets and will allow corresponding return packets - necessary for SMTP connections, because you want to be able to receive the "okay, data received" signal from the server you're sending mail out to.

iptables -I INPUT -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

See [1]

Editing php.ini

No smtp settings needed in the php.ini file...

See [2]

Do need to enable PHP OpenSSL support though: in php.ini, add

[PHP_OPENSSL]
extension=php_openssl.dll

See [3]

Editing PHPMailer Settings

Need to edit the file class.smtp.php and put your SMTP credentials there. (I think.)

Using PHPMailer

See https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer

<?php

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Include PHP mailer stuff

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

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

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Set SMTP credentials


$mail = new PHPMailer(true);                              // Passing `true` enables exceptions
try {
    //Server settings
    $mail->SMTPDebug = 2;                                 // 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 = 'user@example.com';                 // SMTP username
    $mail->Password = 'secret';                           // SMTP password
    $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';                            // Enable TLS encryption, `ssl` also accepted
    $mail->Port = 587;                                    // TCP port to connect to

    //Recipients
    $mail->setFrom('from@example.com', 'Mailer');
    $mail->addAddress('joe@example.net', 'Joe User');     // Add a recipient
    $mail->addAddress('ellen@example.com');               // Name is optional
    $mail->addReplyTo('info@example.com', 'Information');
    $mail->addCC('cc@example.com');
    $mail->addBCC('bcc@example.com');

    //Attachments
    $mail->addAttachment('/var/tmp/file.tar.gz');         // Add attachments
    $mail->addAttachment('/tmp/image.jpg', 'new.jpg');    // Optional name

    //Content
    $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';

    $mail->send();
    echo 'Message has been sent';
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo 'Message could not be sent.';
    echo 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}

?>

Don't Send to Gmail

If you are experiencing problems with PHPMailer, and you are sending emails to a gmail acount, try sending your emails to a non-gmail account.

I was trying all kinds of different things in the script above and nothing was working, but then I got the bright idea to send to a non-gmail email address, and everything worked like a charm.

The PHPMailer emails were simply being dropped by Gmail, without any notification. They did not even show up in my spam folder.

My ultimate solution: send the emails to a non-gmail account (an email service associated with my domain but run by NameCheap). If you need to send them to a gmail account, set up email forwarding from the non-gmail NameCheap account to your gmail account.