Send mail from a local apache server

Question

I want to send emails from my PHP web app. I know that it is possible because a couple of months ago, I had this "feature" on my system, then I started to use xampp and the feature disappeared.

I thought that when I come back to my local server and will use a local MySQL database and stuff like I used to before, I could send emails from my web apps again.

I updated my operating system from Mountain Lion to Mavericks (no idea whether this could be the main issue) and went back to local apache server also removing xampp. But I still can't send emails from my web app.

I changed the php.ini file that is in use so I can use the mail feature:

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/smtp
SMTP = localhost
; http://php.net/smtp-port
smtp_port = 25

; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/sendmail-from
; sendmail_from = me@example.com

; For Unix only.  You may supply arguments as well (default: "sendmail -t -i").
; http://php.net/sendmail-path
sendmail_path = "/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i"

Answer 1

Mine default php.ini on maverick

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/smtp
SMTP = localhost
; http://php.net/smtp-port
smtp_port = 25

; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/sendmail-from
;sendmail_from = me@example.com

; For Unix only.  You may supply arguments as well (default: "sendmail -t -i").
; http://php.net/sendmail-path
;sendmail_path =

; Force the addition of the specified parameters to be passed as extra parameters
; to the sendmail binary. These parameters will always replace the value of
; the 5th parameter to mail(), even in safe mode.
;mail.force_extra_parameters =

; Add X-PHP-Originating-Script: that will include uid of the script followed by the filename
mail.add_x_header = On

; The path to a log file that will log all mail() calls. Log entries include
; the full path of the script, line number, To address and headers.
;mail.log =
; Log mail to syslog (Event Log on NT, not valid in Windows 95).
;mail.log = syslog

A common problem is that a ISP has blocked port 25, for development i have modified the php.ini section mail as below, the smtp port of my mail server changed to port 587 and changed the hostname.

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/smtp
SMTP = smtp.example.net
; http://php.net/smtp-port
smtp_port = 587
sendmail_from = user@example.net
auth_username = user@example.net
auth_password = password
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/sendmail-from
;sendmail_from = me@example.com