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    imap_mail

    (PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    imap_mail — Send an email message

    Description

    imap_mail(
        string $to,
        string $subject,
        string $message,
        ?string $additional_headers = null,
        ?string $cc = null,
        ?string $bcc = null,
        ?string $return_path = null
    ): bool

    This function allows sending of emails with correct handling of Cc and Bcc receivers.

    The parameters to, cc and bcc are all strings and are all parsed as » RFC822 address lists.

    Parameters

    to

    The receiver

    subject

    The mail subject

    message

    The mail body, see imap_mail_compose()

    additional_headers

    As string with additional headers to be set on the mail

    cc

    bcc

    The receivers specified in bcc will get the mail, but are excluded from the headers.

    return_path

    Use this parameter to specify return path upon mail delivery failure. This is useful when using PHP as a mail client for multiple users.

    Return Values

    Returns true on success or false on failure.

    Changelog

    Version Description
    8.0.0 additional_headers, cc, bcc, and return_path are now nullable.

    See Also

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    User Contributed Notes 4 notes

    up
    3
    Patanjali
    6 years ago
    In response to Mathias Rav's comment.

    While imap_mail might have this $rpath bug, it is hardly comparable to mail, because mail only uses the default send mail server account, and not a real mailbox, which you can programmatically interrogate and clean up.

    Using the imap extension allows proper mail management and operation, like users not getting the cryptic server account name followed by 'on behalf of' the 'From' address that mail sourced emails show on some recipient clients.
    up
    -4
    Mathias Rav
    15 years ago
    As per http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=30688 the $rpath argument is ignored, and since the (as of now) 4 year old bug is tagged WONTFIX in the bug tracker, this function is effectively deprecated in favour of mail().
    up
    -9
    bandpay at hotmail dot com
    23 years ago
    Extending the above note.
    When the socket connection is stablished, it works exactly as if you had openned a telnet connection to the news server. If you don't know what kind of headers you have to send to the news server, then I'll suggest that you better give it a try and play with a telnet connection like this:

    telenet news.servername.com 119

    eaxmple:

    telnet news.euroconnect.dk 119
    Trying 195.184.44.30...
    Connected to news.euroconnect.net (195.184.44.30).
    Escape character is '^]'.
    200 news.euroconnect.net (Typhoon v1.2.1)

    then you'll receive confirmation from the server that you are connected. Now type "help" and enter, and you'll see what commands are supported.

    eaxmle:

    help
    100 Legal Commands
      article [<messageid>|number]
      authinfo type value
      body [<messageid>|number]
      date
      group newsgroup
      head [<messageid>|number]
      help
      last
      list [active wildmat|active.times|counts wildmat]
      list [overview.fmt|newsgroups wildmat]
      listgroup newsgroup
      mode reader
      newgroups yyyymmdd hhmmss [GMT]
      newnews newsgroups yyyymmdd hhmmss [GMT]
      next
      post
      stat [<messageid>|number]
      xhdr field [range]
      xover [range]
      xpat field range pattern
      quit

    If you want to post a message, you can start by entring the "post" command.

    example:

    post
    340 Send Article to be Posted

    From here you can start to enter the header information.
    The most important headers are:
    From:
    Subject:
    Newsgroup:

    after the ":" a "white space" must follow.

    If you are posting the multipart message then remember
    MIME-Version: 1.0

    This one is also one of the important headers when you are posting a multipart message. The boundary must follow the content type in the same line.

    Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------4A11A9ABCFCA70DD4E0C3605"

    Take a look at the article below to find out more about headers and packing of the message.

    http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/kartic20000807.php3
    up
    -17
    uphonesimon at gmail dot com
    18 years ago
    make sure you've correctly setup the SMTP parameters in php.ini
    and aslo make sure that the SMTP server accepts relay

    for some mail servers, you have to open up an imap stream, log in, and then you can send mail through imap_mail
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