Configuration
Laravel provides a clean, simple API over the popular SwiftMailer library. The mail configuration file is config/mail.php
, and contains options allowing you to change your SMTP host, port, and credentials, as well as set a global from
address for all messages delivered by the library. You may use any SMTP server you wish. If you wish to use the PHP mail
function to send mail, you may change the driver
to mail
in the configuration file. A sendmail
driver is also available.
API Drivers
Laravel also includes drivers for the Mailgun and Mandrill HTTP APIs. These APIs are often simpler and quicker than the SMTP servers. Both of these drivers require that the Guzzle 5 HTTP library be installed into your application. You can add Guzzle 5 to your project by adding the following line to your composer.json
file:
"guzzlehttp/guzzle": "~5.0"
Mailgun Driver
To use the Mailgun driver, set the driver
option to mailgun
in your config/mail.php
configuration file. Next, create an config/services.php
configuration file if one does not already exist for your project. Verify that it contains the following options:
'mailgun' => [ 'domain' => 'your-mailgun-domain', 'secret' => 'your-mailgun-key',],
Mandrill Driver
To use the Mandrill driver, set the driver
option to mandrill
in your config/mail.php
configuration file. Next, create an config/services.php
configuration file if one does not already exist for your project. Verify that it contains the following options:
'mandrill' => [ 'secret' => 'your-mandrill-key',],
Log Driver
If the driver
option of your config/mail.php
configuration file is set to log
, all e-mails will be written to your log files, and will not actually be sent to any of the recipients. This is primarily useful for quick, local debugging and content verification.
Basic Usage
The Mail::send
method may be used to send an e-mail message:
Mail::send('emails.welcome', ['key' => 'value'], function($message){});
The first argument passed to the send
method is the name of the view that should be used as the e-mail body. The second is the data to be passed to the view, often as an associative array where the data items are available to the view by $key
. The third is a Closure allowing you to specify various options on the e-mail message.
A $message
variable is always passed to e-mail views, and allows the inline embedding of attachments. So, it is best to avoid passing a message
variable in your view payload.
You may also specify a plain text view to use in addition to an HTML view:
Mail::send(['html.view', 'text.view'], $data, $callback);
Or, you may specify only one type of view using the html
or text
keys:
Mail::send(['text' => 'view'], $data, $callback);
You may specify other options on the e-mail message such as any carbon copies or attachments as well:
Mail::send('emails.welcome', $data, function($message){ $message->attach($pathToFile);});
When attaching files to a message, you may also specify a MIME type and / or a display name:
$message->attach($pathToFile, ['as' => $display, 'mime' => $mime]);
If you just need to e-mail a simple string instead of an entire view, use the raw
method:
Mail::raw('Text to e-mail', function($message){ });
The message instance passed to a Mail::send
Closure extends the SwiftMailer message class, allowing you to call any method on that class to build your e-mail messages.
Embedding Inline Attachments
Embedding inline images into your e-mails is typically cumbersome; however, Laravel provides a convenient way to attach images to your e-mails and retrieving the appropriate CID.
Embedding An Image In An E-Mail View
<body> Here is an image: <img src="<?php echo $message->embed($pathToFile); ?>"></body>
Embedding Raw Data In An E-Mail View
<body> Here is an image from raw data: <img src="<?php echo $message->embedData($data, $name); ?>"></body>
Note that the $message
variable is always passed to e-mail views by the Mail
facade.
Queueing Mail
Queueing A Mail Message
Since sending e-mail messages can drastically lengthen the response time of your application, many developers choose to queue e-mail messages for background sending. Laravel makes this easy using its built-in unified queue API. To queue a mail message, simply use the queue
method on the Mail
facade:
Mail::queue('emails.welcome', $data, function($message){});
You may also specify the number of seconds you wish to delay the sending of the mail message using the later
method:
Mail::later(5, 'emails.welcome', $data, function($message){});
If you wish to specify a specific queue or "tube" on which to push the message, you may do so using the queueOn
and laterOn
methods:
Mail::queueOn('queue-name', 'emails.welcome', $data, function($message){});
Mail & Local Development
When developing an application that sends e-mail, it's usually desirable to disable the sending of messages from your local or development environment. To do so, you may either call the Mail::pretend
method, or set the pretend
option in the config/mail.php
configuration file to true
. When the mailer is in pretend
mode, messages will be written to your application's log files instead of being sent to the recipient.
If you would like to actually view the test e-mails, consider using a service like MailTrap.