Sending a Simple Text Email

At first let's consider how to send a simple text email messages. PHP includes the mail() function for sending email, which takes three basic and two optional parameters. These parameters are, in order, the email address to send to, the subject of the email, the message to be sent, additional headers you want to include and finally an additional parameter to the Sendmail program. The mail() function returns True if the message is sent successfully and False otherwise.

Have a look at the example:

<?php

//define the receiver of the email

$to = 'youraddress@example.com';

//define the subject of the email

$subject = 'Test email'; 

//define the message to be sent. Each line should be separated with \n

$message = "Hello World!\n\nThis is my first mail."; 

//define the headers we want passed. Note that they are separated with \r\n

$headers = "From: webmaster@example.com\r\nReply-To: webmaster@example.com";

//send the email

$mail_sent = @mail( $to, $subject, $message, $headers );

//if the message is sent successfully print "Mail sent". Otherwise print "Mail failed" 

echo $mail_sent ? "Mail sent" : "Mail failed";

?>

As you can see, it very easy to send an email. You can add more receivers by either adding their addresses, comma separated, to the $to variable, or by adding cc: or bcc: headers. If you don't receive the test mail, you have probably installed PHP incorrectly, or may not have permission to send emails.