Installing Phpmailer class to post basic mails from website.

Current PHPMailer setup with Composer

For a new project, install PHPMailer with Composer and load it through vendor/autoload.php. This avoids the old manual class.phpmailer.php include pattern shown later on this page.

<?php
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;

$mail = new PHPMailer(true);
$mail->setFrom('no-reply@example.com', 'Example Site');
$mail->addAddress('recipient@example.com');
$mail->Subject = 'Test message';
$mail->Body = 'This message was sent with PHPMailer.';
$mail->send();
?>

The older class-file installation examples below are preserved as legacy reference. Use the Composer/autoload approach for current projects.

To post mails from website phpmailer is much better and easy to use than using PHP mail() function.

Installation of phpmailer

Visit github and download the PHPMailer zip file, place them inside a folder say my_phpmailer. You have to include the file class.phpmailer.php

require_once('my_phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php');

We kept this file inside my_phpmailer folder, you can change the path as per your site condition.
This is an object oriented program so we will create the object first.

$email = new PHPMailer();

Most of our job is over now. Here is the full code to send your first mail using phpmailer.

<?php

$bodytext=' This is the body of the test mail ';
$subject= 'plus2 Message Subject'.date(" H:i:s", time());


require_once('my_phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php');
$email = new PHPMailer();
$email->From = 'userid@example.com';
$email->AddReplyTo('userid@example.com', 'Contact Admin');
$email->FromName = 'Your Name';
$email->Subject   = $subject;
$email->Body      = $bodytext;
$email->AddAddress('userid1@example.com');
$email->AddAddress('userid2@example.com');


if(!$email->send()) 
{
    echo "Mailer Error: " . $email->ErrorInfo;
} 
else 
{
    echo "Message has been sent successfully";
}
?>

Sending HTML Email

After the $email->Body we will add this .

$email->Body      = $bodytext;
$email->IsHTML(true);// HTML email

Adding CC & BCC

$email->AddCC('userid3@example.com');
$email->AddBCC('userid4@example.com');

Sending file as attachment with mail

$file_to_attach = 'your_dir/top.pdf'; // Path with file name
$email->AddAttachment( $file_to_attach);// File attached

The full code with file attachement is here.

<?php

$bodytext=' This is the body of the test mail ';
$subject= 'plus2 Message Subject'.date(" H:i:s", time());


require_once('my_phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php');
$email = new PHPMailer();
$email->From = 'userid@example.com';
$email->AddReplyTo('userid@example.com', 'Contact Admin');
$email->FromName = 'Your Name';
$email->Subject   = $subject;
$email->Body      = $bodytext;
$email->AddAddress('userid1@example.com');
$email->AddAddress('userid2@example.com');

$file_to_attach = 'your_dir/top.pdf'; // Path with file name
$email->AddAttachment( $file_to_attach);// File attached

if(!$email->send()) 
{
    echo "Mailer Error: " . $email->ErrorInfo;
} 
else 
{
    echo "Message has been sent successfully";
}
?>

Questions

What is PHPMailer and what is its purpose?
How do you install and set up PHPMailer in a PHP project?
How do you create a new instance of PHPMailer?
What are the key features of PHPMailer?
How do you configure SMTP settings in PHPMailer?
How do you attach files to an email using PHPMailer?
How can you send HTML-formatted emails with PHPMailer?
What methods does PHPMailer provide for adding recipients to an email?
How can you handle errors and exceptions when using PHPMailer?
How do you send an email using PHPMailer?

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Subhendu Mohapatra

Author & Instructor at plus2net

I write and maintain practical tutorials on Python, PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, jQuery, and web development at plus2net. The tutorials focus on clear explanations, working examples, and code that readers can test and adapt while learning.

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