Laravel default mail not working

Question

Im attempting to send a user activation email upon registration. I have a simple laravel site with registration and authentication. Upon registration, there are no errors, a

Answer 1

Config/mail.php

 'sendmail',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Host Address
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may provide the host address of the SMTP server used by your
| applications. A default option is provided that is compatible with
| the Mailgun mail service which will provide reliable deliveries.
|
*/

'host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Host Port
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This is the SMTP port used by your application to deliver e-mails to
| users of the application. Like the host we have set this value to
| stay compatible with the Mailgun e-mail application by default.
|
*/

'port' => 465,

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Global "From" Address
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| You may wish for all e-mails sent by your application to be sent from
| the same address. Here, you may specify a name and address that is
| used globally for all e-mails that are sent by your application.
|
*/

'from' => ['address' => 'your mail', 'name' => 'Project'],

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| E-Mail Encryption Protocol
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may specify the encryption protocol that should be used when
| the application send e-mail messages. A sensible default using the
| transport layer security protocol should provide great security.
|
*/

'encryption' => '',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Server Username
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| If your SMTP server requires a username for authentication, you should
| set it here. This will get used to authenticate with your server on
| connection. You may also set the "password" value below this one.
|
*/

'username' => 'your email (gmail)',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Server Password
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may set the password required by your SMTP server to send out
| messages from your application. This will be given to the server on
| connection so that the application will be able to send messages.
|
*/

'password' => 'password (email)',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Sendmail System Path
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When using the "sendmail" driver to send e-mails, we will need to know
| the path to where Sendmail lives on this server. A default path has
| been provided here, which will work well on most of your systems.
|
*/

'sendmail' => '/usr/sbin/sendmail -bs',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mail "Pretend"
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When this option is enabled, e-mail will not actually be sent over the
| web and will instead be written to your application's logs files so
| you may inspect the message. This is great for local development.
|
*/

'pretend' => false,

];

The mail function

use Illuminate\Contracts\Mail\Mailer;

$message = [
            'title'     => 'Verification code',
            'intro'     => "Please verify your email address with ".$user->confirmation_code,
            'link'      => '',
            'confirmation_code' => '',
            'to_email'  => $user->email,
            'to_name'   => $user_details->first_name.' '.$user_details->last_name,
        ];

        \Mail::send('emails.auth.verify', $message, function($m) use($message) {
            $m->to($message['to_email'], $message['to_name'])
                    ->subject('Email verification');
        });