Sending Emails with Mailer

Installation

Symfony's Mailer & Mime </components/mime> components form a powerful system for creating and sending emails - complete with support for multipart messages, Twig integration, CSS inlining, file attachments and a lot more. Get them installed with:

$ composer require symfony/mailer

Transport Setup

Emails are delivered via a "transport". And without installing anything else, you can deliver emails over smtp by configuring your .env file (the user, pass and port parameters are optional):

# .env
MAILER_DSN=smtp://user:pass@smtp.example.com:port

Warning

If you are migrating from Swiftmailer (and the Swiftmailer bundle), be warned that the DSN format is different.

Using a 3rd Party Transport

But an easier option is to send emails via a 3rd party provider. Mailer supports several - install whichever you want:

Service	Install with
Amazon SES	`composer require symfony/amazon-mailer`
Gmail	`composer require symfony/google-mailer`
MailChimp	`composer require symfony/mailchimp-mailer`
Mailgun	`composer require symfony/mailgun-mailer`
Postmark	`composer require symfony/postmark-mailer`
SendGrid	`composer require symfony/sendgrid-mailer`

Each library includes a Symfony Flex recipe <symfony-flex> that will add example configuration to your .env file. For example, suppose you want to use SendGrid. First, install it:

$ composer require symfony/sendgrid-mailer

You'll now have a new line in your .env file that you can uncomment:

# .env
MAILER_DSN=sendgrid://KEY@default

The MAILER_DSN isn't a real address: it's a simple format that offloads most of the configuration work to mailer. The sendgrid scheme activates the SendGrid provider that you just installed, which knows all about how to deliver messages to SendGrid.

The only part you need to change is to replace KEY in the MAILER_DSN (in .env or .env.local).

Each provider has different environment variables that the Mailer uses to configure the actual protocol, address and authentication for delivery. Some also have options that can be configured with query parameters at the end of the MAILER_DSN - like ?region= for Amazon SES or Mailgun. Some providers support sending via http, api or smtp. Symfony chooses the best available transport, but you can force to use one:

# .env
# force to use SMTP instead of HTTP (which is the default)
MAILER_DSN=sendgrid+smtp://$SENDGRID_KEY@default

Tip

Check the DSN formats <mailer_dsn> for all supported providers.

Creating & Sending Messages

To send an email, autowire the mailer using Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\MailerInterface (service id mailer.mailer) and create an Symfony\\Component\\Mime\\Email object:

// src/Controller/MailerController.php
namespace App\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Mailer\MailerInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Mime\Email;

class MailerController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/email")
     */
    public function sendEmail(MailerInterface $mailer)
    {
        $email = (new Email())
            ->from('hello@example.com')
            ->to('you@example.com')
            //->cc('cc@example.com')
            //->bcc('bcc@example.com')
            //->replyTo('fabien@example.com')
            //->priority(Email::PRIORITY_HIGH)
            ->subject('Time for Symfony Mailer!')
            ->text('Sending emails is fun again!')
            ->html('<p>See Twig integration for better HTML integration!</p>');

        $mailer->send($email);

        // ...
    }
}

That's it! The message will be sent via whatever transport you configured.

Email Addresses

All the methods that require email addresses (from(), to(), etc.) accept both strings or address objects:

// ...
use Symfony\Component\Mime\Address;

$email = (new Email())
    // email address as a simple string
    ->from('fabien@example.com')

    // email address as an object
    ->from(new Address('fabien@example.com'))

    // defining the email address and name as an object
    // (email clients will display the name)
    ->from(new Address('fabien@example.com', 'Fabien'))

    // defining the email address and name as a string
    // (the format must match: 'Name <email@example.com>')
    ->from(Address::fromString('Fabien Potencier <fabien@example.com>'))

    // ...
;

Tip

Instead of calling ->from() every time you create a new email, you can create an event subscriber </event_dispatcher> and listen to the Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Event\\MessageEvent event to set the same From email to all messages.

Multiple addresses are defined with the addXXX() methods:

$email = (new Email())
    ->to('foo@example.com')
    ->addTo('bar@example.com')
    ->addTo('baz@example.com')

    // ...
;

Alternatively, you can pass multiple addresses to each method:

$toAddresses = ['foo@example.com', new Address('bar@example.com')];

$email = (new Email())
    ->to(...$toAddresses)
    ->cc('cc1@example.com', 'cc2@example.com')

    // ...
;

Message Headers

Messages include a number of header fields to describe their contents. Symfony sets all the required headers automatically, but you can set your own headers too. There are different types of headers (Id header, Mailbox header, Date header, etc.) but most of the times you'll set text headers:

$email = (new Email())
    ->getHeaders()
        // this header tells auto-repliers ("email holiday mode") to not
        // reply to this message because it's an automated email
        ->addTextHeader('X-Auto-Response-Suppress', 'OOF, DR, RN, NRN, AutoReply');

    // ...
;

Message Contents

The text and HTML contents of the email messages can be strings (usually the result of rendering some template) or PHP resources:

$email = (new Email())
    // ...
    // simple contents defined as a string
    ->text('Lorem ipsum...')
    ->html('<p>Lorem ipsum...</p>')

    // attach a file stream
    ->text(fopen('/path/to/emails/user_signup.txt', 'r'))
    ->html(fopen('/path/to/emails/user_signup.html', 'r'))
;

Tip

You can also use Twig templates to render the HTML and text contents. Read the Twig: HTML & CSS section later in this article to learn more.

File Attachments

Use the attachFromPath() method to attach files that exist on your file system:

$email = (new Email())
    // ...
    ->attachFromPath('/path/to/documents/terms-of-use.pdf')
    // optionally you can tell email clients to display a custom name for the file
    ->attachFromPath('/path/to/documents/privacy.pdf', 'Privacy Policy')
    // optionally you can provide an explicit MIME type (otherwise it's guessed)
    ->attachFromPath('/path/to/documents/contract.doc', 'Contract', 'application/msword')
    // you can also use an absolute URL if your PHP config allows getting URLs using fopen()
    // (this is not recommended because your application may or may not work depending on PHP config)
    ->attachFromPath('http://example.com/path/to/documents/contract.doc', 'Contract', 'application/msword')
;

Alternatively you can use the attach() method to attach contents from a stream:

$email = (new Email())
    // ...
    ->attach(fopen('/path/to/documents/contract.doc', 'r'))
;

Embedding Images

If you want to display images inside your email, you must embed them instead of adding them as attachments. When using Twig to render the email contents, as explained later in this article <mailer-twig-embedding-images>, the images are embedded automatically. Otherwise, you need to embed them manually.

First, use the embed() or embedFromPath() method to add an image from a file or stream:

$email = (new Email())
    // ...
    // get the image contents from a PHP resource
    ->embed(fopen('/path/to/images/logo.png', 'r'), 'logo')
    // get the image contents from an existing file
    ->embedFromPath('/path/to/images/signature.gif', 'footer-signature')
;

The second optional argument of both methods is the image name ("Content-ID" in the MIME standard). Its value is an arbitrary string used later to reference the images inside the HTML contents:

$email = (new Email())
    // ...
    ->embed(fopen('/path/to/images/logo.png', 'r'), 'logo')
    ->embedFromPath('/path/to/images/signature.gif', 'footer-signature')
    // reference images using the syntax 'cid:' + "image embed name"
    ->html('<img src="cid:logo"> ... <img src="cid:footer-signature"> ...')
;

Debugging Emails

The Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\SentMessage object returned by the send() method of the Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Transport\\TransportInterface provides access to the original message (getOriginalMessage()) and to some debug information (getDebug()) such as the HTTP calls done by the HTTP transports, which is useful to debug errors.

Note

Some mailer providers change the Message-Id when sending the email. The getMessageId() method from SentMessage always returns the definitive ID of the message (being the original random ID generated by Symfony or the new ID generated by the mailer provider).

The exceptions related to mailer transports (those which implement Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Exception\\TransportException) also provide this debug information via the getDebug() method.

Twig: HTML & CSS

The Mime component integrates with the Twig template engine <twig-language> to provide advanced features such as CSS style inlining and support for HTML/CSS frameworks to create complex HTML email messages. First, make sure Twig is installed:

$ composer require symfony/twig-bundle

HTML Content

To define the contents of your email with Twig, use the Symfony\\Bridge\\Twig\\Mime\\TemplatedEmail class. This class extends the normal Symfony\\Component\\Mime\\Email class but adds some new methods for Twig templates:

use Symfony\Bridge\Twig\Mime\TemplatedEmail;

$email = (new TemplatedEmail())
    ->from('fabien@example.com')
    ->to(new Address('ryan@example.com'))
    ->subject('Thanks for signing up!')

    // path of the Twig template to render
    ->htmlTemplate('emails/signup.html.twig')

    // pass variables (name => value) to the template
    ->context([
        'expiration_date' => new \DateTime('+7 days'),
        'username' => 'foo',
    ])
;

Then, create the template:

{# templates/emails/signup.html.twig #}
<h1>Welcome {{ email.toName }}!</h1>

<p>
    You signed up as {{ username }} the following email:
</p>
<p><code>{{ email.to[0].address }}</code></p>

<p>
    <a href="#">Click here to activate your account</a>
    (this link is valid until {{ expiration_date|date('F jS') }})
</p>

The Twig template has access to any of the parameters passed in the context() method of the TemplatedEmail class and also to a special variable called email, which is an instance of Symfony\\Bridge\\Twig\\Mime\\WrappedTemplatedEmail.

Text Content

When the text content of a TemplatedEmail is not explicitly defined, mailer will generate it automatically by converting the HTML contents into text. If you have league/html-to-markdown installed in your application, it uses that to turn HTML into Markdown (so the text email has some visual appeal). Otherwise, it applies the strip_tags PHP function to the original HTML contents.

If you want to define the text content yourself, use the text() method explained in the previous sections or the textTemplate() method provided by the TemplatedEmail class:

+ use Symfony\Bridge\Twig\Mime\TemplatedEmail;

$email = (new TemplatedEmail())
    // ...

    ->htmlTemplate('emails/signup.html.twig')
+     ->textTemplate('emails/signup.txt.twig')
    // ...
;

Embedding Images

Instead of dealing with the <img src="cid: ..."> syntax explained in the previous sections, when using Twig to render email contents you can refer to image files as usual. First, to simplify things, define a Twig namespace called images that points to whatever directory your images are stored in:

# config/packages/twig.yaml
twig:
    # ...

    paths:
        # point this wherever your images live
        '%kernel.project_dir%/assets/images': images

Now, use the special email.image() Twig helper to embed the images inside the email contents:

{# '@images/' refers to the Twig namespace defined earlier #}
<img src="{{ email.image('@images/logo.png') }}" alt="Logo">

<h1>Welcome {{ email.toName }}!</h1>
{# ... #}

Inlining CSS Styles

Designing the HTML contents of an email is very different from designing a normal HTML page. For starters, most email clients only support a subset of all CSS features. In addition, popular email clients like Gmail don't support defining styles inside <style> ... </style> sections and you must inline all the CSS styles.

CSS inlining means that every HTML tag must define a style attribute with all its CSS styles. This can make organizing your CSS a mess. That's why Twig provides a CssInlinerExtension that automates everything for you. Install it with:

$ composer require twig/extra-bundle twig/cssinliner-extra

The extension is enabled automatically. To use it, wrap the entire template with the inline_css filter:

{% apply inline_css %}
    <style>
        {# here, define your CSS styles as usual #}
        h1 {
            color: #333;
        }
    </style>

    <h1>Welcome {{ email.toName }}!</h1>
    {# ... #}
{% endapply %}

Using External CSS Files

You can also define CSS styles in external files and pass them as arguments to the filter:

{% apply inline_css(source('@css/email.css')) %}
    <h1>Welcome {{ username }}!</h1>
    {# ... #}
{% endapply %}

You can pass unlimited number of arguments to inline_css() to load multiple CSS files. For this example to work, you also need to define a new Twig namespace called css that points to the directory where email.css lives:

# config/packages/twig.yaml
twig:
    # ...

    paths:
        # point this wherever your css files live
        '%kernel.project_dir%/assets/css': css

Rendering Markdown Content

Twig provides another extension called MarkdownExtension that lets you define the email contents using Markdown syntax. To use this, install the extension and a Markdown conversion library (the extension is compatible with several popular libraries):

# instead of league/commonmark, you can also use erusev/parsedown or michelf/php-markdown
$ composer require twig/markdown-extra league/commonmark

The extension adds a markdown_to_html filter, which you can use to convert parts or the entire email contents from Markdown to HTML:

{% apply markdown_to_html %}
    Welcome {{ email.toName }}!
    ===========================

    You signed up to our site using the following email:
    `{{ email.to[0].address }}`

    [Click here to activate your account]({{ url('...') }})
{% endapply %}

Inky Email Templating Language

Creating beautifully designed emails that work on every email client is so complex that there are HTML/CSS frameworks dedicated to that. One of the most popular frameworks is called Inky. It defines a syntax based on some simple tags which are later transformed into the real HTML code sent to users:

<!-- a simplified example of the Inky syntax -->
<container>
    <row>
        <columns>This is a column.</columns>
    </row>
</container>

Twig provides integration with Inky via the InkyExtension. First, install the extension in your application:

$ composer require twig/extra-bundle twig/inky-extra

The extension adds an inky_to_html filter, which can be used to convert parts or the entire email contents from Inky to HTML:

{% apply inky_to_html %}
    <container>
        <row class="header">
            <columns>
                <spacer size="16"></spacer>
                <h1 class="text-center">Welcome {{ email.toName }}!</h1>
            </columns>

            {# ... #}
        </row>
    </container>
{% endapply %}

You can combine all filters to create complex email messages:

{% apply inky_to_html|inline_css(source('@css/foundation-emails.css')) %}
    {# ... #}
{% endapply %}

This makes use of the css Twig namespace <mailer-css-namespace> we created earlier. You could, for example, download the foundation-emails.css file directly from GitHub and save it in assets/css.

Signing and Encrypting Messages

It's possible to sign and/or encrypt email messages applying the S/MIME standard to increase their integrity/security. Both options can be combined to encrypt a signed message and/or to sign an encrypted message.

Before signing/encrypting messages, make sure to have:

The OpenSSL PHP extension properly installed and configured;
A valid S/MIME security certificate.

Signing Messages

When signing a message, a cryptographic hash is generated for the entire content of the message (including attachments). This hash is added as an attachment so the recipient can validate the integrity of the received message. However, the contents of the original message are still readable for mailing agents not supporting signed messages, so you must also encrypt the message if you want to hide its contents:

use Symfony\Component\Mime\Crypto\SMimeSigner;
use Symfony\Component\Mime\Email;

$email = (new Email())
    ->from('hello@example.com')
    // ...
    ->html('...');

$signer = new SMimeSigner('/path/to/certificate.crt', '/path/to/certificate-private-key.key');
// if the private key has a passphrase, pass it as the third argument
// new SMimeSigner('/path/to/certificate.crt', '/path/to/certificate-private-key.key', 'the-passphrase');

$signedEmail = $signer->sign($email);
// now use the Mailer component to send this $signedEmail instead of the original email

The certificate and private key must be PEM encoded, and can be either created using for example OpenSSL or obtained at an official Certificate Authority (CA). The email recipient must have the CA certificate in the list of trusted issuers in order to verify the signature.

Tip

When using OpenSSL to generate certificates, make sure to add the -addtrust emailProtection command option.

Tip

The SMimeSigner class defines other optional arguments to pass intermediate certificates and to configure the signing process using a bitwise operator options for openssl_pkcs7_sign PHP function.

Encrypting Messages

When encrypting a message, the entire message (including attachments) is encrypted using a certificate. Therefore, only the recipients that have the corresponding private key can read the original message contents:

use Symfony\Component\Mime\Crypto\SMimeEncrypter;
use Symfony\Component\Mime\Email;

$email = (new Email())
    ->from('hello@example.com')
    // ...
    ->html('...');

$encrypter = new SMimeEncrypter('/path/to/certificate.crt');
$encryptedEmail = $encrypter->encrypt($email);
// now use the Mailer component to send this $encryptedEmail instead of the original email

You can pass more than one certificate to the SMimeEncrypter() constructor and it will select the appropriate certificate depending on the To option:

$firstEmail = (new Email())
    // ...
    ->to('jane@example.com');

$secondEmail = (new Email())
    // ...
    ->to('john@example.com');

// the second optional argument of SMimeEncrypter defines which encryption algorithm is used
// (it must be one of these constants: https://www.php.net/manual/en/openssl.ciphers.php)
$encrypter = new SMimeEncrypter([
    // key = email recipient; value = path to the certificate file
    'jane@example.com' => '/path/to/first-certificate.crt',
    'john@example.com' => '/path/to/second-certificate.crt',
]);

$firstEncryptedEmail = $encrypter->encrypt($firstEmail);
$secondEncryptedEmail = $encrypter->encrypt($secondEmail);

Multiple Email Transports

You may want to use more than one mailer transport for delivery of your messages. This can be configured by replacing the dsn configuration entry with a transports entry, like:

# config/packages/mailer.yaml
framework:
    mailer:
        transports:
            main: '%env(MAILER_DSN)%'
            alternative: '%env(MAILER_DSN_IMPORTANT)%'

By default the first transport is used. The other transports can be used by adding a text header X-Transport to an email:

// Send using first "main" transport ...
$mailer->send($email);

// ... or use the "alternative" one
$email->getHeaders()->addTextHeader('X-Transport', 'alternative');
$mailer->send($email);

Sending Messages Async

When you call $mailer->send($email), the email is sent to the transport immediately. To improve performance, you can leverage Messenger </messenger> to send the messages later via a Messenger transport.

Start by following the Messenger </messenger> documentation and configuring a transport. Once everything is set up, when you call $mailer->send(), a Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Messenger\\SendEmailMessage message will be dispatched through the default message bus (messenger.default_bus). Assuming you have a transport called async, you can route the message there:

# config/packages/messenger.yaml
framework:
    messenger:
        transports:
            async: "%env(MESSENGER_TRANSPORT_DSN)%"

        routing:
            'Symfony\Component\Mailer\Messenger\SendEmailMessage':  async

<!-- config/packages/messenger.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:framework="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">

    <framework:config>
        <framework:messenger>
            <framework:routing message-class="Symfony\Component\Mailer\Messenger\SendEmailMessage">
                <framework:sender service="async"/>
            </framework:routing>
        </framework:messenger>
    </framework:config>
</container>

// config/packages/messenger.php
$container->loadFromExtension('framework', [
    'messenger' => [
        'routing' => [
            'Symfony\Component\Mailer\Messenger\SendEmailMessage' => 'async',
        ],
    ],
]);

Thanks to this, instead of being delivered immediately, messages will be sent to the transport to be handled later (see messenger-worker).

Adding Tags and Metadata to Emails

5.1

The Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Header\\TagHeader and Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Header\\MetadataHeader classes were introduced in Symfony 5.1.

Certain 3rd party transports support email tags and metadata, which can be used for grouping, tracking and workflows. You can add those by using the Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Header\\TagHeader and Symfony\\Component\\Mailer\\Header\\MetadataHeader classes. If your transport supports headers, it will convert them to their appropriate format:

use Symfony\Component\Mailer\Header\MetadataHeader;
use Symfony\Component\Mailer\Header\TagHeader;

$email->getHeaders()->add(new TagHeader('password-reset'));
$email->getHeaders()->add(new MetadataHeader('Color', 'blue'));
$email->getHeaders()->add(new MetadataHeader('Client-ID', '12345'));

If your transport does not support tags and metadata, they will be added as custom headers:

X-Tag: password-reset
X-Metadata-Color: blue
X-Metadata-Client-ID: 12345

The following transports currently support tags and metadata:

Postmark
Mailgun
MailChimp

Development & Debugging

Disabling Delivery

While developing (or testing), you may want to disable delivery of messages entirely. You can do this by forcing Mailer to use the NullTransport in only the dev environment:

# config/packages/dev/mailer.yaml
framework:
    mailer:
        dsn: 'null://null'

Note

If you're using Messenger and routing to a transport, the message will still be sent to that transport.

Always Send to the same Address

Instead of disabling delivery entirely, you might want to always send emails to a specific address, instead of the real address. To do that, you can take advantage of the EnvelopeListener and register it only for the dev environment:

# config/services_dev.yaml
services:
    mailer.dev.set_recipients:
        class: Symfony\Component\Mailer\EventListener\EnvelopeListener
        tags: ['kernel.event_subscriber']
        arguments:
            $sender: null
            $recipients: ['youremail@example.com']

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

mailer.rst

mailer.rst

Sending Emails with Mailer

Installation

Transport Setup

Using a 3rd Party Transport

Creating & Sending Messages

Email Addresses

Message Headers

Message Contents

File Attachments

Embedding Images

Debugging Emails

Twig: HTML & CSS

HTML Content

Text Content

Embedding Images

Inlining CSS Styles

Using External CSS Files

Rendering Markdown Content

Inky Email Templating Language

Signing and Encrypting Messages

Signing Messages

Encrypting Messages

Multiple Email Transports

Sending Messages Async

Adding Tags and Metadata to Emails

Development & Debugging

Disabling Delivery

Always Send to the same Address

Files

mailer.rst

Latest commit

History

mailer.rst

File metadata and controls

Sending Emails with Mailer

Installation

Transport Setup

Using a 3rd Party Transport

Creating & Sending Messages

Email Addresses

Message Headers

Message Contents

File Attachments

Embedding Images

Debugging Emails

Twig: HTML & CSS

HTML Content

Text Content

Embedding Images

Inlining CSS Styles

Using External CSS Files

Rendering Markdown Content

Inky Email Templating Language

Signing and Encrypting Messages

Signing Messages

Encrypting Messages

Multiple Email Transports

Sending Messages Async

Adding Tags and Metadata to Emails

Development & Debugging

Disabling Delivery

Always Send to the same Address