Laravel Email: I’m delighted to have you join us on this exciting voyage into the realm of Laravel email communications. If you’re anything like me, you recognize the significance of excellent communication in web apps. Emails, in particular, are essential for user engagement, notifications, and even marketing.
We’ll dive deep into the inner workings of Laravel’s mailing system in this article. We’ll begin by configuring Laravel mail, then look at different mail drivers and how to choose the one that best meets our needs. Then, to engage our users, we’ll design our own mailable classes and gorgeous email templates.
But wait, there’s more! We’ll also go over how to send these emails and the distinctions between synchronous and queue-based sending. And for those of you who enjoy going above and beyond, we’ll cover advanced topics like attachments, inline photos, and markdown emails.
Finally, because we believe in the mantra “Trust, but verify”, we’ll finish with learning how to construct Laravel tests for our emails. So strap in and prepare to unleash the power of mailables in your Laravel applications. Let’s get this party started!
1. Setting Up Laravel EMail Configuration
Setting up Laravel’s mail setup is a simple process. The mail configuration file is found in "config/mail.php". This file allows you to setup the mail sending services of your application.
'mail' => [
'driver' => env('MAIL_DRIVER', 'smtp'),
'host' => env('MAIL_HOST', 'smtp.mailgun.org'),
'port' => env('MAIL_PORT', 587),
'from' => [
'address' => env('MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS', 'hello@example.com'),
'name' => env('MAIL_FROM_NAME', 'Example'),
],
'encryption' => env('MAIL_ENCRYPTION', 'tls'),
'username' => env('MAIL_USERNAME'),
'password' => env('MAIL_PASSWORD'),
],
We’re utilizing the smtp driver and Mailgun’s SMTP server in this configuration.
Laravel includes many mail drivers out of the box, including "SMTP", "Mailgun", "Postmark", "Amazon SES", and "sendmail", allowing you to select the best one for your needs.
1.1. SMTP: is a standard mail protocol that works with nearly every email provider. 1.2. Mailgun, Postmark, and Amazon SES are APIs that provide more robust features like analytics, but they require account setup. 1.3. Sendmail is a local mail server, useful for local development.
Choosing a driver depends on by your requirements. Consider "Mailgun" or "Postmark" if you require advanced services such as analytics or excellent deliverability. For simpler requirements or "local development", "SMTP" or "sendmail" might be enough.
2. Creating Mailables
A mailable class in Laravel is a representation of an email. It’s a simple way to create and send emails directly from your application utilizing a choice of mail drivers.
The "make:mail" Artisan command can be used to create a mailable class. For example, if we wanted to develop a mailable class for a welcome email, we could use the following code.
php artisan make:mail WelcomeEmail
This command will create a new mailable class in the "app/Mail" directory. If this directory does not exist, Laravel will create it for you.
namespace App\Mail;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
class WelcomeEmail extends Mailable
{
use Queueable, SerializesModels;
public $user;
public function __construct(User $user)
{
$this->user = $user;
}
public function build()
{
return $this->view('emails.welcome')
->with([
'name' => $this->user->name,
'email' => $this->user->email,
]);
}
}
In this example, we’re giving a User object to the constructor of a mailable and saving it on the mailable instance. This information can then be used in our views.
In the "build" method, you can configure numerous email options such as the view, the subject, and any data you want to give to the view. In this case, we’re using the view method to specify that we want to use the emails.welcome view for the email’s content.
Remember that the data you supply to the view will be available in the view file as variables. As a result, "$name" and "$email" will be available in the emails in our example.Thank you for your time.
3. Writing Email Templates
In Laravel, generating views for email content is identical to creating views for web pages. These views are kept in the directory "resources/views". It’s a good idea to build a distinct directory for emails, say emails, to keep your email views.
Let’s keep our "WelcomeEmail" example going. In the mailable class, we stated that we’re utilizing the emails.welcome view. This means that a "welcome.blade.php" file must be created in the "resources/views/emails" directory.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome Email</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to our website, {{ $name }}!</h1>
<p>We're excited to have you join us. You can login using your email: {{ $email }}</p>
<p>Feel free to explore and let us know if you have any questions.</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>The Team</p>
</body>
</html>
We’re utilizing Blade syntax in this view to display the user’s name and email address. Because we supplied them to the view in our mailable class, the variables "$name" and "$email" are available.
4. Sending Emails
The "Mail" facade makes sending emails in Laravel a breeze. You can send an email with just one line of code after you’ve set up your mailable class and view.
use App\Mail\WelcomeEmail;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail;
$user = User::find(1); // Fetch the user from the database
Mail::to($user->email)->send(new WelcomeEmail($user));
To define the receiver of the email, we use the to method on the "Mail" facade in this example. We then invoke the "send" method, sending an instance of our "WelcomeEmail" mailable as an argument.
Laravel delivers emails "synchronously" by default. This signifies that the program will wait for the email before proceeding with the rest of the request. This can cause delays if you send a large number of emails or if your mail server is slow.
You can queue your emails instead to avoid these delays. A queue worker sends queued emails in the background, allowing your application to continue processing other tasks. Simply use the queue method instead of send to "queue" an email.
Mail::to($user->email)->queue(new WelcomeEmail($user));
Remember, in order to use queued emails, you’ll need to set up a queue driver and run a queue worker. Laravel supports several queue drivers out of the box, including database, Redis, and Amazon SQS.
5. Advanced Topics: Attachments, Markdown, Inline Images
Laravel’s mailables provide various additional options for creating rich, dynamic emails. Let’s look at some of these capabilities in more detail: attachments, inline images, and markdown emails.
Attachments
It is as simple as invoking the "attach" method on the mailable object to add attachments to your emails. Here’s how you could include a PDF file in our "WelcomeEmail":
public function build()
{
return $this->view('emails.welcome')
->with([
'name' => $this->user->name,
'email' => $this->user->email,
])
->attach(public_path('/path/to/file.pdf'), [
'as' => 'UserGuide.pdf',
'mime' => 'application/pdf',
]);
}
Inline Images
Inline images can be embedded directly into your email content using the "embed" method. Here’s how you might include an inline image in your email view:
<body>
<h1>Welcome to our website, {{ $name }}!</h1>
<img src="{{ $message->embed(public_path('/path/to/image.jpg')) }}">
</body>
Markdown Emails
Laravel also supports markdown emails, which allow you to use simple markdown syntax to format your email content. To create a markdown email, use the markdown method instead of view:
public function build()
{
return $this->markdown('emails.welcome_markdown')
->with([
'name' => $this->user->name,
'email' => $this->user->email,
]);
}
6. Testing Emails
Laravel makes it simple to test your emails, which is an important aspect of any application. "Mail::fake" and "Mail::assertSent" are two useful methods in Laravel for testing mail.
use App\Mail\WelcomeEmail;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail;
public function testWelcomeEmailIsSent()
{
Mail::fake();
$user = User::find(1); // Fetch the user from the database
Mail::to($user->email)->send(new WelcomeEmail($user));
Mail::assertSent(WelcomeEmail::class);
Mail::assertSent(WelcomeEmail::class, function ($mail) use ($user) {
return $mail->user->id === $user->id;
});
Mail::assertSent(WelcomeEmail::class, 1); // Assert a mailable was sent twice.
}
In this example, we’re using "Mail::fake" to prevent emails from being sent during the test. This is useful since it allows us to confirm that an email was sent without sending it.
We then send out our "WelcomeEmail" as usual. We can make claims about the emails after they have been sent.
We can use "Mail::assertSent" to assert that an email was sent based on its mailable class. We may also give a closure to assertSent to make additional specific assertions, such as confirming that the email was delivered to the correct user.
Conclusion
And there you have it! We’ve explored the realm of Laravel email communications, from setting up mail setups to developing mailables and views to sending and testing emails. We’ve also looked into complex themes such as attachments, inline photos, and markdown emails.
Keep in mind that excellent email communication can significantly improve the user experience of your web application. So don’t be frightened to get started and send those emails!
If you’re interested in learning more about security in Laravel, I highly recommend checking out this excellent article on Encryption and Password Hashing in Laravel. It provides a comprehensive guide on how to securely store and handle sensitive data in your Laravel applications.
I hope you found this guide useful. Happy coding, as always!