Sending email from localhost

Question

I'm using WampServer on Windows to test a site. I have a registration system where users get a confirmation email.

Is it possible to send emails from a localhost?

Solution 1

If you want to send emails from localhost directly, you need to install a Mail Transport Agent (MTA), or if you like, a SMTP service.

IIS provides one. You can otherwise find some others on Google.

You can also change your php.ini mail settings. This won't use localhost per say to send emails, but a relay host that will allow you to send emails from a PHP script.

Solution 2

Not unless you install a SMTP server on it. I think XAMPP includes one, but you're probably better off just using an existing external server. You can set this with the php.ini SMTP setting.

Solution 3

I actually just set this up the other day using fake sendmail.

It is actually fairly easy to set up. I found this tutorial to be helpful.

There are other alternatives out there but this is working great for me using Gmail.

I can use the mail() function in PHP without issues. One issue that I haven't resolved yet is that the email always appears to come from my gmail address instead of whatever I supplied in the mail() arguments. I believe this may be a Gmail feature, not a sendmail issue though.