# Sending e-mail with PHP


Hi everyone,

In this arcticle, I will demonstrate you how to send an e-mail with PHP using PHPMailer. Lot’s of time we need to send e-mail from our websites that includes information, contact and etc. So this time sending e-mail is lifesaving. I will use an OpenSource library that send e-mail with PHP.

Before we start, I want to give you an information about PHP.
[**PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor**
*The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.0.30. This is a security release. Several…*php.net](http://php.net/)

[**PHP](http://php.net/) **is a server-side scripting language. This is used to static websites, dynamic websites and web applications. A scripting language is a language that interprets scripts at runtime. Running a PHP scripts you need to install server like xampp and if you are using different OS, you can also search a list alternatives to [**xammp](https://alternativeto.net/software/xampp/)**.
[**XAMPP Alternatives and Similar Software - AlternativeTo.net**
*Popular Alternatives to XAMPP for Windows, Mac, Linux, Self-Hosted, Web and more. Explore 42 apps like XAMPP, all…*alternativeto.net](https://alternativeto.net/software/xampp/)

Once you know what PHP is we can continue with PHPMailer.

What is PHPMailer?

PHPMailer is a classic email sending library for PHP that developing under LGPL licence. Also you can download and contribute on their [**GitHub](https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer)3** page. For more details info visit their GitHub page and wiki.
[**PHPMailer/PHPMailer**
*PHPMailer - The classic email sending library for PHP*github.com](https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer)

Once you learned what PHPMailer is we can download latest release from PHPMailer releases [page](https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases). I will download latest release and add your project directory. You can also use adding your project directory because of scripting library.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1610347098501/Rv6KDWjos.png)

After that we can do a form for giving values from user.

```hack
<form role="form" action="sendmail.php" method="post" style="text-align:center;margin-top:50px;" >
<div>
<input id='email' type="email" name="_mail" placeholder="E-mail">
</div>
<br>
<div>
<input id = 'subject' type="text" name="_subject" placeholder="Subject">
</div>
<br>
<textarea id='mailBody' name="_body" rows="12"></textarea>
<br>
<button type="submit" name="submit" >Send E-mail</button>
</form>
```

This code will show you like below image.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1610347100384/p508u6KI8.png)

Then we create a file called **sendmail.php** in project folders. Then we type this code.

```php
<?php
/**
* This example shows settings to use when sending via Google's Gmail servers.
* This uses traditional id & password authentication - look at the gmail_xoauth.phps
* example to see how to use XOAUTH2.
* The IMAP section shows how to save this message to the 'Sent Mail' folder using IMAP commands.
*/
//Import PHPMailer classes into the global namespace
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;
require 'PHPMailer-6.0.3/src/Exception.php';
require 'PHPMailer-6.0.3/src/PHPMailer.php';
require 'PHPMailer-6.0.3/src/SMTP.php';
if(isset($_POST['submit'])){
$_subject = $_POST['_subject'];
$_mail = $_POST['_mail'];
$_body = $_POST['_body'];
$mail = new PHPMailer;
//Tell PHPMailer to use SMTP
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->CharSet = 'UTF-8';
//Enable SMTP debugging
// 0 = off (for production use)
// 1 = client messages
// 2 = client and server messages
$mail->SMTPDebug = 0;
//Set the hostname of the mail server
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
// use
// $mail->Host = gethostbyname('smtp.gmail.com');
// if your network does not support SMTP over IPv6
//Set the SMTP port number - 587 for authenticated TLS, a.k.a. RFC4409 SMTP submission
$mail->Port = 587;
//Set the encryption system to use - ssl (deprecated) or tls
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
//Whether to use SMTP authentication
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
//Username to use for SMTP authentication - use full email address for gmail
$mail->Username = "yourmailadresorusername";
//Password to use for SMTP authentication
$mail->Password = "yoursecretpassword";
//Set who the message is to be sent from
$mail->setFrom('yourmailadress', 'Info');
//Set an alternative reply-to address
//$mail->addReplyTo('replyto@example.com', 'First Last');
//Set who the message is to be sent to
$mail->addAddress($_mail, 'Sent Name');
//Set the subject line
$mail->Subject = $_subject; //'PHPMailer GMail SMTP test';
//Read an HTML message body from an external file, convert referenced images to embedded,
//convert HTML into a basic plain-text alternative body
//$mail->msgHTML(file_get_contents('contents.html'), __DIR__);
$msgValue = $_body;
$mail->msgHTML($msgValue);
//Replace the plain text body with one created manually
//$mail->AltBody = 'This is a plain-text message body';
//Attach an image file
//$mail->addAttachment('images/phpmailer_mini.png');
//send the message, check for errors
if (!$mail->send()) {
echo 'Send e-mail failure';
echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
// Send Successfully
echo 'Send e-mail successfully';
//Section 2: IMAP
//Uncomment these to save your message in the 'Sent Mail' folder.
#if (save_mail($mail)) {
# echo "Message saved!";
#}
}
}else {
//echo "Not Post";
}
?>
```

We give values from user with form and sending to **sendmail.php** script. After that we are comparet is there any **POST** method. If It has any **POST** method we continue and control parameters. **Subject, Mail, Body** information we collect. We are setting up our **gmail** service information. We are typing our mail adresses and password want to send and give from user to who send. This code gives you simplicity to send e mail from form. I created sample project my GitHub page, you can easily find full project, check and [**download](https://github.com/coderkan/send-email-with-phpmailer)**.
[**coderkan/send-email-with-phpmailer**
*Contribute to send-email-with-phpmailer development by creating an account on GitHub.*github.com](https://github.com/coderkan/send-email-with-phpmailer)

I hope you enjoy reading.

Have a nice coding…