How to send an email via Gmail SMTP server using CodeIgniter-4?

Do you know we can send email from our CodeIgniter-4 web application to others using our personal Gmail? If your answer is “No” then let’s have a look at this article.

Step-1: Change App Access Rule

First Login to your Gmail account and click on Your Image Icon > Manage Your Google Account > Security as represented below.

Now, change the Allow less secure apps status and make it ON.

Step 2: Configure Email.php.

Open app/config/Email.php file from your CodeIgniter-4 application folder and provide your Gmail credentials and other parameters value.

<?php
namespace Config;
use CodeIgniter\Config\BaseConfig;
class Email extends BaseConfig
{
/**
* @var string
*/
public $fromEmail;
/**
* @var string
*/
public $fromName;
/**
* @var string
*/
public $recipients;
/**
* The “user agent”
*
* @var string
*/
public $userAgent = ‘CodeIgniter’;
/**
* The mail sending protocol: mail, sendmail, smtp
*
* @var string
*/
public $protocol = ‘smtp’;
/**
* The server path to Sendmail.
*
* @var string
*/
public $mailPath = ‘/usr/sbin/sendmail’;
/**
* SMTP Server Address
*
* @var string
*/
public $SMTPHost= ‘smtp.googlemail.com’;
/**
* SMTP Username
*
* @var string
*/
public $SMTPUser=’example-email-name@gmail.com’;//writhe here your email
/**
* SMTP Password
*
* @var string
*/
public $SMTPPass=’example-password’;//write here your password
/**
* SMTP Port
*
* @var integer
*/
public $SMTPPort = 465;
/**
* SMTP Timeout (in seconds)
*
* @var integer
*/
public $SMTPTimeout = 5;
/**
* Enable persistent SMTP connections
*
* @var boolean
*/
public $SMTPKeepAlive = false;
/**
* SMTP Encryption. Either tls or ssl
*
* @var string
*/
public $SMTPCrypto = ‘ssl’;
/**
* Enable word-wrap
*
* @var boolean
*/
public $wordWrap = true;
/**
* Character count to wrap at
*
* @var integer
*/
public $wrapChars = 76;
/**
* Type of mail, either ‘text’ or ‘html’
*
* @var string
*/
public $mailType = ‘text’;
/**
* Character set (utf-8, iso-8859–1, etc.)
*
* @var string
*/
public $charset = ‘UTF-8’;
/**
* Whether to validate the email address
*
* @var boolean
*/
public $validate = false;
/**
* Email Priority. 1 = highest. 5 = lowest. 3 = normal
*
* @var integer
*/
public $priority = 3;
/**
* Newline character. (Use “\r\n” to comply with RFC 822)
*
* @var string
*/
public $CRLF = “\r\n”;
/**
* Newline character. (Use “\r\n” to comply with RFC 822)
*
* @var string
*/
public $newline = “\r\n”;
/**
* Enable BCC Batch Mode.
*
* @var boolean
*/
public $BCCBatchMode = false;
/**
* Number of emails in each BCC batch
*
* @var integer
*/
public $BCCBatchSize = 200;
/**
* Enable notify message from server
*
* @var boolean
*/
public $DSN = false;
}

Step-3: Make a Controller

Create a controller SendEmail.php to your app/Controllers folder . After creating, write a push method inside the controller which is given below.

<?php
namespace App\Controllers;
use CodeIgniter\Controller;
class SendEmail extends Controller
{
public function push()
{
$to = ‘destination-name@gmail.com’;//Type here the mail address where you want to send
$subject = ‘Subject of Email’;//Write here Subject of Email
$message=”Conngrats ! You did it.”;//Write the message you want to send
$email = \Config\Services::email();
$email->setTo($to);
$email->setFrom(‘example-name@gmail.com’, ‘Mail Testing’);//set From
$email->setSubject($subject);
$email->setMessage($message);
if($email->send())
{
echo “Email has been Sent.”;
}
else{
echo “Something went wrong !”;
}
}
}

Step-4: Call the push() function

Now paste the URL (ex: http://localhost/Email-Sending-Codeigniter4-Gmail-SMTP/public/sendemail/push) to browser and hit enter ! Congrats ! You did it.