PHP: how to send email basics

Question

I\'m would like to use PHP to send email from my localhost to other people. What do I need to do that?

For example do I need to install mailserver? If I\'m not mistaken

Answer 1

You need the software that will actually send the email after your PHP script has made a request to so (through using the mail function: http://php.net/mail). As stated in some of the previous responses there are software options for this, regardless of what operating system you run.

This, however, can sometimes be quite tricky for a beginner. Typically your ISP will give you access to an SMTP server from which to send emails, and you can set up your configuration to do this. For development purposes, this ought to do the trick for you. These details will likely be on your ISP's website (or possibly in your email client, somewhere.) Your config would end up looking something like

[mail function] ; For Win32 only.
SMTP = smtp.my-isp.com
smtp_port = 25
sendmail_from =my.account@my-isp.com

Failing that, you could just upload your script to your web host, where it should already be configured to work.

Hope that helps.