PHP Attaching an image to an email

php email attachment

20,354

Solution 1

Try the PEAR Mail_Mime package, which can embed images for you.

You need to use the addHTMLImage() method and pass a content id (cid), which is a unique string of text you will also use in your img's src attribute as a cid: URL. For example:

include('Mail.php');
include "Mail/mime.php";


$crlf = "\r\n";
$hdrs = array( 
        'From' => '[email protected]', 
        'Subject' => 'Mail_mime test message' 
        ); 

$mime = new Mail_mime($crlf); 

//attach our image with a unique content id
$cid="mycidstring";
$mime->addHTMLImage("/path/to/myimage.gif", "image/gif", "", true, $cid);

//now we can use the content id in our message
$html = '<html><body><img src="cid:'.$cid.'"></body></html>';
$text = 'Plain text version of email';

$mime->setTXTBody($text);
$mime->setHTMLBody($html); 

$body = $mime->get();
$hdrs = $mime->headers($hdrs);

$mail =& Mail::factory('mail');
$mail->send('[email protected]', $hdrs, $body);

Solution 2

It's probably easiest to use some library that can deal with email attachments. For example, PEAR's Mail_Mime.

Solution 3

PEAR's Mail_Mime package is what you're after here.

Once you've set your message up, adding an attachment is as simple as:

$mime = new Mail_mime("\n");

$mime->setTXTBody($msg_text);
$mime->setHTMLbody($msg_html);

// Add gif as attachment to mail
$mime->addAttachment("/path/to/image/smile.gif", "image/gif");

$body = $mime->get();
$headers = $mime->headers($headers);
$mail->send("[email protected]", $headers, $body);

If you're looking for your logo to display in a particular place in the email - rather than solely as an attachment - you can do the following:

// In your message html:
<img src='logo.gif' alt='Our logo' />

// PHP:
$mime->addHTMLImage('/path/to/image/logo.gif');

This approach can have mixed results depending on your user's mail client, so before sending it out try testing your format on dummy gmail, yahoo and hotmail accounts.

20,354

Author by

Omar Kooheji

I've given up a life of code and turned to the dark side. I now lead a team of talented software engineers to deliver quality systems.

Updated on July 09, 2022

Comments

Omar Kooheji almost 2 years

Is there a way to attach an image to an html formatted email message created in PHP?

We need to ensure that a corporate logo is on emails sent to clients who may not have access to the internet whilst reading their email (They will obviously have it to download the files).
Joonas Pulakka about 15 years

Damn, you were 20 seconds faster ;-)
Logan Wayne about 8 years

I'm getting twice the error of Notice: Undefined property: Mail_mime::$_html_images in .... It's the line where you declare the $cid variable. It sends the email but it does not display the image. Will you be able to update your answer?
kliron about 8 years

This answer is 7 years old! If you look at the source for Mail_Mime, you'll see that the $_html_images member I access is renamed $html_images and protected github.com/pear/Mail_Mime/blob/1.10.0/Mail/mime.php#L111 Wouldn't be hard to derived a new class from Mail_mime and add a method to give you that cid value though.
Matt over 7 years

Tried to edit this answer, but it was rejected... The Mail_Mime module allows you to specify the content-id with addHTMLImage()[1]. So instead of needing to fish it out, simply do: $mime->addHTMLImage("/path/to/myimage.gif", "image/gif", "", true, "mycidstring"); $html = '<html><body><img src="cid:mycidstring"></body></html>'; [1]pear.php.net/manual/en/package.mail.mail-mime.addhtmlimag‌e.php
kliron over 7 years

I didn't reject it :( Edit looked fine to me so I've changed the answer. Many thanks.