[Resolved] mail() function

insectis

Hey all,

I've got a quick question about the mail() function. I've included it in my script to email someone their password, if they've forgotten it. The code is:

mail($emailFindRow['username'], $subject, $mailContent, "From: $fromAddress");

I've run this many times and not once has it emailed me with my password. No emails come through at all.. Is my code wrong, or is there some trick to this function that I'm not aware of? Or, could it possibly be my host?

Thanks in advance for your help!

insectis

FrozNic

here's a quick examp... works for me

/* recipients */ 
$to = "Mary <mary@example.com>" . ", " ; // note the comma 
$to .= "Kelly <kelly@example.com>"; 

/* subject */ 
$subject = "Birthday Reminders for August"; 

/* message */ 
$message = ' 
<html> 
<head> 
<title>Birthday Reminders for August</title> 
</head> 
<body> 
<p>Here are the birthdays upcoming in August!</p> 
<table> 
<tr> 
<th>Person</th><th>Day</th><th>Month</th><th>Year</th> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>Joe</td><td>3rd</td><td>August</td><td>1970</td> 
</tr> 
<tr> 
<td>Sally</td><td>17th</td><td>August</td><td>1973</td> 
</tr> 
</table> 
</body> 
</html> 
'; 

/* To send HTML mail, you can set the Content-type header. */ 
$headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n"; 
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n"; 

/* additional headers */ 
$headers .= "From: Birthday Reminder <birthday@example.com>\r\n"; 

$headers .= "Cc: [email]birthdayarchive@example.com[/email]\r\n"; 
$headers .= "Bcc: [email]birthdaycheck@example.com[/email]\r\n"; 

/* and now mail it */ 
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

insectis

Hmm... It seems to have worked now, it just took about an hour to go through. I might as well have mailed it through postal mail! 😉

Oh well, it must be my host that's taking forever. But thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it!

insectis

FrozNic

i've noticed that too with my isp so i finally just installed a mail client on my box.. winxp .. it's a free client, u can get it at
http://www.mailenable.com/
if u want to try that...

gertdh

Using the code above to send mail from within a webshop to notify the buyer his/hers order arrived works good. But what if you want to bulk mail some 1000 or more customers with the same function, is that a good way to do or is there a better way.

Gert de Haan

FrozNic

i'm going to say it would work fine, but, honestly, i'm not sure. i see no reason why it wouldn't work fine, unless mail servers aren't setup to do that. one problem i've found, is that hotmail checks to see how many people a message has been sent to. if u and i think it's either 15 or 20 other people get the same message. hotmail considers it spam and puts it automatically into junk mail. but then again. you wouldn't want to execute your script a 1000 times to send emails out one at a time. i've never really done mass mails so i'm not sure. maybe someone else will see this post and comment, but most likely u'r going to want to start another post if u want a better answer 🙂

rupertbj

also, the function might timeout sending that many mails. get a mail server.

dinger

Use SMTP to send mass email not the mail() function...

It's far more efficient.

gertdh

What about PHP Mailer can this one do the job ??

EpicEro

If you're emailing multiple addresses that are in the same table, just create a loop that will email each email address:

$body="text of the email";

$l=connect();
$q="select * from mailing_list";
$r=mysql_query($q, $l);
while ($send=mysql_fetch_object($r)) {
$mailto=$send->email;
$mailfrom="myemail@somewhere.com";
$subject="Subject";
if (mail($mailto, $subjet, $body, "From:$mailfrom")) {
print ("Message mailed to $mailto!<br>");
} else {
print ("Could not send email");
}
}

gertdh

I already do it like this but was wondering if there was another way, because there could be timeouts doing it this way. Some people say that there are better ways to accomplish this without having timeouts.
At this moment however i haven't had any problems with it. My adress table consists of about 1500 customers (and still growing) that I email on a regular basis.
I have my own webserver (hardware that is, and coupled directly to the internet backbone so i have a very fast access from all over the world) i'm hosting about 25 domains so i haven't got any capacity problems using large MySQL tables holding products / orders and so on, and sending bulk-emails to my 1500 customers through the PHP Mail() function.
So if anyone thinks this is the best way, i'll keep it like it is. But i'm always in for better ways to gain more speed and less problems.

Gert de Haan