I want my website to have the ability to send an email without refreshing the page. So I want to use Javascript.
<form action="javascript:sendMail();" name="pmForm" id="pmForm" method="post">
Enter Friend's Email:
<input name="pmSubject" id="pmSubject" type="text" maxlength="64" style="width:98%;" />
<input name="pmSubmit" type="submit" value="Invite" />
Here is how I want to call the function, but I'm not sure what to put into the javascript function. From the research I've done I found an example that uses the mailto method, but my understanding is that doesn't actually send directly from the site.
So my question is where can I find what to put inside the JavaScript function to send an email directly from the website.
function sendMail() {
/* ...code here... */
}
You can't send an email directly with javascript.
You can, however, open the user's mail client:
window.open('mailto:test#example.com');
There are also some parameters to pre-fill the subject and the body:
window.open('mailto:test#example.com?subject=subject&body=body');
Another solution would be to do an ajax call to your server, so that the server sends the email. Be careful not to allow anyone to send any email through your server.
Indirect via Your Server - Calling 3rd Party API - secure and recommended
Your server can call the 3rd Party API. The API Keys are not exposed to client.
node.js
const axios = require('axios');
async function sendEmail(name, email, subject, message) {
const data = JSON.stringify({
"Messages": [{
"From": {"Email": "<YOUR EMAIL>", "Name": "<YOUR NAME>"},
"To": [{"Email": email, "Name": name}],
"Subject": subject,
"TextPart": message
}]
});
const config = {
method: 'post',
url: 'https://api.mailjet.com/v3.1/send',
data: data,
headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'},
auth: {username: '<API Key>', password: '<Secret Key>'},
};
return axios(config)
.then(function (response) {
console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data));
})
.catch(function (error) {
console.log(error);
});
}
// define your own email api which points to your server.
app.post('/api/sendemail/', function (req, res) {
const {name, email, subject, message} = req.body;
//implement your spam protection or checks.
sendEmail(name, email, subject, message);
});
and then use use fetch on client side to call your email API.
Use from email which you used to register on Mailjet. You can authenticate more addresses too. Mailjet offers a generous free tier.
Update 2023: As pointed out in the comments the method below does not work any more due to CORS
This can be only useful if you want to test sending email and to do this
visit https://api.mailjet.com/stats (yes a 404 page)
and run this code in the browser console (with the secrets populated)
Directly From Client - Calling 3rd Party API - not recommended
in short:
register for Mailjet to get an API key and Secret
use fetch to call API to send an email
Like this -
function sendMail(name, email, subject, message) {
const myHeaders = new Headers();
myHeaders.append("Content-Type", "application/json");
myHeaders.set('Authorization', 'Basic ' + btoa('<API Key>'+":" +'<Secret Key>'));
const data = JSON.stringify({
"Messages": [{
"From": {"Email": "<YOUR EMAIL>", "Name": "<YOUR NAME>"},
"To": [{"Email": email, "Name": name}],
"Subject": subject,
"TextPart": message
}]
});
const requestOptions = {
method: 'POST',
headers: myHeaders,
body: data,
};
fetch("https://api.mailjet.com/v3.1/send", requestOptions)
.then(response => response.text())
.then(result => console.log(result))
.catch(error => console.log('error', error));
}
sendMail('Test Name',"<YOUR EMAIL>",'Test Subject','Test Message')
Note: Keep in mind that your API key is visible to anyone, so any malicious user may use your key to send out emails that can eat up your quota.
I couldn't find an answer that really satisfied the original question.
Mandrill is not desirable due to it's new pricing policy, plus it required a backend service if you wanted to keep your credentials safe.
It's often preferable to hide your email so you don't end up on any lists (the mailto solution exposes this issue, and isn't convenient for most users).
It's a hassle to set up sendMail or require a backend at all just to send an email.
I put together a simple free service that allows you to make a standard HTTP POST request to send an email. It's called PostMail, and you can simply post a form, use JavaScript or jQuery. When you sign up, it provides you with code that you can copy & paste into your website. Here are some examples:
JavaScript:
<form id="javascript_form">
<input type="text" name="subject" placeholder="Subject" />
<textarea name="text" placeholder="Message"></textarea>
<input type="submit" id="js_send" value="Send" />
</form>
<script>
//update this with your js_form selector
var form_id_js = "javascript_form";
var data_js = {
"access_token": "{your access token}" // sent after you sign up
};
function js_onSuccess() {
// remove this to avoid redirect
window.location = window.location.pathname + "?message=Email+Successfully+Sent%21&isError=0";
}
function js_onError(error) {
// remove this to avoid redirect
window.location = window.location.pathname + "?message=Email+could+not+be+sent.&isError=1";
}
var sendButton = document.getElementById("js_send");
function js_send() {
sendButton.value='Sending…';
sendButton.disabled=true;
var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (request.readyState == 4 && request.status == 200) {
js_onSuccess();
} else
if(request.readyState == 4) {
js_onError(request.response);
}
};
var subject = document.querySelector("#" + form_id_js + " [name='subject']").value;
var message = document.querySelector("#" + form_id_js + " [name='text']").value;
data_js['subject'] = subject;
data_js['text'] = message;
var params = toParams(data_js);
request.open("POST", "https://postmail.invotes.com/send", true);
request.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
request.send(params);
return false;
}
sendButton.onclick = js_send;
function toParams(data_js) {
var form_data = [];
for ( var key in data_js ) {
form_data.push(encodeURIComponent(key) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(data_js[key]));
}
return form_data.join("&");
}
var js_form = document.getElementById(form_id_js);
js_form.addEventListener("submit", function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
});
</script>
jQuery:
<form id="jquery_form">
<input type="text" name="subject" placeholder="Subject" />
<textarea name="text" placeholder="Message" ></textarea>
<input type="submit" name="send" value="Send" />
</form>
<script>
//update this with your $form selector
var form_id = "jquery_form";
var data = {
"access_token": "{your access token}" // sent after you sign up
};
function onSuccess() {
// remove this to avoid redirect
window.location = window.location.pathname + "?message=Email+Successfully+Sent%21&isError=0";
}
function onError(error) {
// remove this to avoid redirect
window.location = window.location.pathname + "?message=Email+could+not+be+sent.&isError=1";
}
var sendButton = $("#" + form_id + " [name='send']");
function send() {
sendButton.val('Sending…');
sendButton.prop('disabled',true);
var subject = $("#" + form_id + " [name='subject']").val();
var message = $("#" + form_id + " [name='text']").val();
data['subject'] = subject;
data['text'] = message;
$.post('https://postmail.invotes.com/send',
data,
onSuccess
).fail(onError);
return false;
}
sendButton.on('click', send);
var $form = $("#" + form_id);
$form.submit(function( event ) {
event.preventDefault();
});
</script>
Again, in full disclosure, I created this service because I could not find a suitable answer.
I know I am wayyy too late to write an answer for this question but nevertheless I think this will be use for anybody who is thinking of sending emails out via javascript.
The first way I would suggest is using a callback to do this on the server. If you really want it to be handled using javascript folowing is what I recommend.
The easiest way I found was using smtpJs. A free library which can be used to send emails.
1.Include the script like below
<script src="https://smtpjs.com/v3/smtp.js"></script>
2. You can either send an email like this
Email.send({
Host : "smtp.yourisp.com",
Username : "username",
Password : "password",
To : 'them#website.com',
From : "you#isp.com",
Subject : "This is the subject",
Body : "And this is the body"
}).then(
message => alert(message)
);
Which is not advisable as it will display your password on the client side.Thus you can do the following which encrypt your SMTP credentials, and lock it to a single domain, and pass a secure token instead of the credentials instead.
Email.send({
SecureToken : "C973D7AD-F097-4B95-91F4-40ABC5567812",
To : 'them#website.com',
From : "you#isp.com",
Subject : "This is the subject",
Body : "And this is the body"
}).then(
message => alert(message)
);
Finally if you do not have a SMTP server you use an smtp relay service such as Elastic Email
Also here is the link to the official SmtpJS.com website where you can find all the example you need and the place where you can create your secure token.
I hope someone find this details useful. Happy coding.
You can find what to put inside the JavaScript function in this post.
function getAjax() {
try {
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
return new XMLHttpRequest();
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
try {
return new ActiveXObject('Msxml2.XMLHTTP');
} catch (try_again) {
return new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');
}
}
} catch (fail) {
return null;
}
}
function sendMail(to, subject) {
var rq = getAjax();
if (rq) {
// Success; attempt to use an Ajax request to a PHP script to send the e-mail
try {
rq.open('GET', 'sendmail.php?to=' + encodeURIComponent(to) + '&subject=' + encodeURIComponent(subject) + '&d=' + new Date().getTime().toString(), true);
rq.onreadystatechange = function () {
if (this.readyState === 4) {
if (this.status >= 400) {
// The request failed; fall back to e-mail client
window.open('mailto:' + to + '?subject=' + encodeURIComponent(subject));
}
}
};
rq.send(null);
} catch (fail) {
// Failed to open the request; fall back to e-mail client
window.open('mailto:' + to + '?subject=' + encodeURIComponent(subject));
}
} else {
// Failed to create the request; fall back to e-mail client
window.open('mailto:' + to + '?subject=' + encodeURIComponent(subject));
}
}
Provide your own PHP (or whatever language) script to send the e-mail.
I am breaking the news to you. You CAN'T send an email with JavaScript per se.
Based on the context of the OP's question, my answer above does not hold true anymore as pointed out by #KennyEvitt in the comments. Looks like you can use JavaScript as an SMTP client.
However, I have not digged deeper to find out if it's secure & cross-browser compatible enough. So, I can neither encourage nor discourage you to use it. Use at your own risk.
There seems to be a new solution at the horizon. It's called EmailJS. They claim that no server code is needed. You can request an invitation.
Update August 2016: EmailJS seems to be live already. You can send up to 200 emails per month for free and it offers subscriptions for higher volumes.
window.open('mailto:test#example.com'); as above
does nothing to hide the "test#example.com" email address from being harvested by spambots. I used to constantly run into this problem.
var recipient="test";
var at = String.fromCharCode(64);
var dotcom="example.com";
var mail="mailto:";
window.open(mail+recipient+at+dotcom);
In your sendMail() function, add an ajax call to your backend, where you can implement this on the server side.
Javascript is client-side, you cannot email with Javascript. Browser recognizes maybe only mailto: and starts your default mail client.
JavaScript can't send email from a web browser. However, stepping back from the solution you've already tried to implement, you can do something that meets the original requirement:
send an email without refreshing the page
You can use JavaScript to construct the values that the email will need and then make an AJAX request to a server resource that actually sends the email. (I don't know what server-side languages/technologies you're using, so that part is up to you.)
If you're not familiar with AJAX, a quick Google search will give you a lot of information. Generally you can get it up and running quickly with jQuery's $.ajax() function. You just need to have a page on the server that can be called in the request.
It seems like one 'answer' to this is to implement an SMPT client. See email.js for a JavaScript library with an SMTP client.
Here's the GitHub repo for the SMTP client. Based on the repo's README, it appears that various shims or polyfills may be required depending on the client browser, but overall it does certainly seem feasible (if not actually significantly accomplished), tho not in a way that's easily describable by even a reasonably-long answer here.
There is a combination service. You can combine the above listed solutions like mandrill with a service EmailJS, which can make the system more secure.
They have not yet started the service though.
Another way to send email from JavaScript, is to use directtomx.com as follows;
Email = {
Send : function (to,from,subject,body,apikey)
{
if (apikey == undefined)
{
apikey = Email.apikey;
}
var nocache= Math.floor((Math.random() * 1000000) + 1);
var strUrl = "http://directtomx.azurewebsites.net/mx.asmx/Send?";
strUrl += "apikey=" + apikey;
strUrl += "&from=" + from;
strUrl += "&to=" + to;
strUrl += "&subject=" + encodeURIComponent(subject);
strUrl += "&body=" + encodeURIComponent(body);
strUrl += "&cachebuster=" + nocache;
Email.addScript(strUrl);
},
apikey : "",
addScript : function(src){
var s = document.createElement( 'link' );
s.setAttribute( 'rel', 'stylesheet' );
s.setAttribute( 'type', 'text/xml' );
s.setAttribute( 'href', src);
document.body.appendChild( s );
}
};
Then call it from your page as follows;
window.onload = function(){
Email.apikey = "-- Your api key ---";
Email.Send("to#domain.com","from#domain.com","Sent","Worked!");
}
There is not a straight answer to your question as we can not send email only using javascript, but there are ways to use javascript to send emails for us:
1) using an api to and call the api via javascript to send the email for us, for example https://www.emailjs.com says that you can use such a code below to call their api after some setting:
var service_id = 'my_mandrill';
var template_id = 'feedback';
var template_params = {
name: 'John',
reply_email: 'john#doe.com',
message: 'This is awesome!'
};
emailjs.send(service_id,template_id,template_params);
2) create a backend code to send an email for you, you can use any backend framework to do it for you.
3) using something like:
window.open('mailto:me#http://stackoverflow.com/');
which will open your email application, this might get into blocked popup in your browser.
In general, sending an email is a server task, so should be done in backend languages, but we can use javascript to collect the data which is needed and send it to the server or api, also we can use third parities application and open them via the browser using javascript as mentioned above.
If and only if i had to use some js library, i would do that with SMTPJs library.It offers encryption to your credentials such as username, password etc.
The short answer is that you can't do it using JavaScript alone. You'd need a server-side handler to connect with the SMTP server to actually send the mail. There are many simple mail scripts online, such as this one for PHP:
Use Ajax to send request to the PHP script ,check that required field are not empty or incorrect using js also keep a record of mail send by whom from your server.
function sendMail() is good for doing that.
Check for any error caught while mailing from your script and take appropriate action.
For resolving it for example if the mail address is incorrect or mail is not send due to server problem or it's in queue in such condition report it to user immediately and prevent multi sending same email again and again.
Get response from your script Using jQuery GET and POST
$.get(URL,callback);
$.post(URL,callback);
Since these all are wonderful infos there's a little api called Mandrill to send mails from javascript and it works perfectly. You can give it a shot. Here's a little tutorial for the start.
Full AntiSpam version:
<div class="at">info<i class="fa fa-at"></i>google.com</div>
OR
<div class="at">info#google.com</div>
<style>
.at {
color: blue;
cursor: pointer;
}
.at:hover {
color: red;
}
</style>
<script>
const el33 = document.querySelector(".at");
el33.onclick = () => {
let recipient="info";
let at = String.fromCharCode(64);
let dotcom="google.com";
let mail="mailto:";
window.open(mail+recipient+at+dotcom);
}
</script>
Send an email using the JavaScript or jQuery
var ConvertedFileStream;
var g_recipient;
var g_subject;
var g_body;
var g_attachmentname;
function SendMailItem(p_recipient, p_subject, p_body, p_file, p_attachmentname, progressSymbol) {
// Email address of the recipient
g_recipient = p_recipient;
// Subject line of an email
g_subject = p_subject;
// Body description of an email
g_body = p_body;
// attachments of an email
g_attachmentname = p_attachmentname;
SendC360Email(g_recipient, g_subject, g_body, g_attachmentname);
}
function SendC360Email(g_recipient, g_subject, g_body, g_attachmentname) {
var flag = confirm('Would you like continue with email');
if (flag == true) {
try {
//p_file = g_attachmentname;
//var FileExtension = p_file.substring(p_file.lastIndexOf(".") + 1);
// FileExtension = FileExtension.toUpperCase();
//alert(FileExtension);
SendMailHere = true;
//if (FileExtension != "PDF") {
// if (confirm('Convert to PDF?')) {
// SendMailHere = false;
// }
//}
if (SendMailHere) {
var objO = new ActiveXObject('Outlook.Application');
var objNS = objO.GetNameSpace('MAPI');
var mItm = objO.CreateItem(0);
if (g_recipient.length > 0) {
mItm.To = g_recipient;
}
mItm.Subject = g_subject;
// if there is only one attachment
// p_file = g_attachmentname;
// mAts.add(p_file, 1, g_body.length + 1, g_attachmentname);
// If there are multiple attachment files
//Split the files names
var arrFileName = g_attachmentname.split(";");
// alert(g_attachmentname);
//alert(arrFileName.length);
var mAts = mItm.Attachments;
for (var i = 0; i < arrFileName.length; i++)
{
//alert(arrFileName[i]);
p_file = arrFileName[i];
if (p_file.length > 0)
{
//mAts.add(p_file, 1, g_body.length + 1, g_attachmentname);
mAts.add(p_file, i, g_body.length + 1, p_file);
}
}
mItm.Display();
mItm.Body = g_body;
mItm.GetInspector.WindowState = 2;
}
//hideProgressDiv();
} catch (e) {
//debugger;
//hideProgressDiv();
alert('Unable to send email. Please check the following: \n' +
'1. Microsoft Outlook is installed.\n' +
'2. In IE the SharePoint Site is trusted.\n' +
'3. In IE the setting for Initialize and Script ActiveX controls not marked as safe is Enabled in the Trusted zone.');
}
}
}
An email is sent when I update the status. Issue is, it has many other fields and whenever I update anyone of them, it shoots the email again. All I want to ask for confirmation if you want to send an email or no. I did use ajax to do it but in console, it says email sent but I don't get anything in inbox.
Javascript code
<script type="text/javascript">
function send_email(){
var delete_confirmed=confirm("Are you sure you want to send email?");
if (delete_confirmed==true) {
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: 'email.php',
data:{action:'call_this'},
success:function() {
console.log('email sent');
}
});
}}
</script>
email.php
if(isset($_POST['status']) == 'completed' && $_POST['action'] == 'call_this'){
$cmail = new PHPMailer;
$cmail->isSMTP(); // Set mailer to use SMTP
$cmail->SMTPAuth = true; // Enable SMTP authentication
$cmail->Host = $smtp_server; // Specify main and backup SMTP servers
$cmail->Username = $username; // SMTP username
$cmail->Password = $password; // SMTP password
$cmail->SMTPSecure = "ssl"; // Enable TLS encryption, `ssl` also accepted
$cmail->Port = 465; // TCP port to connect to
$cmail->setFrom("example#example.com", "Example");
$q_mail = "SELECT * FROM order_details WHERE order_id = '$_GET[edit_id]'";
$r_mail = mysqli_query($conn, $q_mail);
while ($r_rows = mysqli_fetch_assoc($r_mail)) {
$cmail->addAddress($r_rows['email'], $r_rows['firstname']); // Add a recipient
$cmail->isHTML(true); // Set email format to HTML
$bodyContent = 'test message';
$cmail->Subject = "test subject" ;
$cmail->Body = $bodyContent;
if(!$cmail->send()) {
$error = $cmail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
$error = 'Message has been sent';
}
}
}
form HTML
<div class="col-md-2" style="padding-left:0px;" ></br>
<input type="submit" class="btn navbar-bar btn-xs btn-success" name="status" onclick="send_email();" value="Update">
</div>
In your PHP you're checking for isset($_POST['status']) == 'completed', which will always be false. isset will only return a boolean. Also, it will always be false as you're not passing in the status to email.php, only the action. You need to make a couple of changes to fix this. The first is to your javascript:
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: 'email.php',
data:{action:'call_this', status: 'completed'},
success:function() {
console.log('email sent');
}
});
The second is to the PHP script:
if( ( isset($_POST['status']) && $_POST['status'] == 'completed' ) && $_POST['action'] == 'call_this'){
The fact that you are receiving some sort of feedback from the ajax request suggests the problems lie elsewhere. The line below was incorrect - you were missing quotes from the edit_id - and when accessing $_GET / $_POST variables within a string I always surround with curly braces as below.
$q_mail = "SELECT * FROM `order_details` WHERE `order_id` = '{$_GET['edit_id']}';";
It could just be that this was misstyped when you posted the question but maybe not - check the error logs whenever things do not happen as expected.
And if you look at this thread there is a good example of using try/catch to deduce where things are going wrong.
I am debugging code written by someone else - I am also a newbie at Ajax and JS. The code shown below uses Ajax (Prototype JavaScript framework, version 1.6.0.1) to submit a simple contact form and update the page with the response. It works perfectly with IE8 and fails with Firefox. I have traced the failure to the post parameters. The target file, mail.php, is not receiving any POST parameters when Firefox is the browser. Not just the values are missing - the params are not defined in the post. The URL is valid. The form, the Ajax JS files and the mail.php script are all on the same domain.
I have tried variations on defining var params as shown in several other Stack Overflow posts (inline, different assignment methods, etc). All produced the same results as the code below.
Any clue what is wrong?
FF results
Please try again. responseText='', url='http://domain.com/builder/mail.php',
form_name='dom', form_message='testing', form_email='dom#domain.com',
form_to='info#domain.com'
IE8 results
Message Sent!
JS function
function sendForm(F)
{
$("contact_form").hide();
$("ajax-loader").show();
var url = site_url+'mail.php';
var form_message = escape($("message").value);
var form_name = escape($("name").value);
var form_address = escape($("address").value);
var form_phone = escape($("phone").value);
var form_email = escape($("email").value);
var form_how_learn = escape($("how_learn").value);
var form_to = escape($("to").value);
var params = {message: form_message,
name: form_name,
address: form_address,
phone: form_phone,
email: form_email,
how_learn: form_how_learn,
to: form_to};
var ajax = new Ajax.Updater(
'contact_form',
url,
{
method: 'post',
parameters: params,
onComplete: function (response)
{
$("ajax-loader").hide();
if (response.responseText == "ok")
{
$("contact_form").innerHTML = "<p style=\"color:green;\">Message Sent!</p>";
$("contact_form").show();
}
else
{
// Debug code added
$("contact_form").innerHTML = "<p style=\"color:red;\">Please try again."+
" responseText='"+response.responseText+"',"+
" url='"+url+"',"+
" form_name='"+form_name+"',"+
" form_message='"+form_message+"',"+
" form_email='"+form_email+"',"+
" form_to='"+form_to+"'"+
"</p>";
$("contact_form").show();
}
},
onFailure: function ()
{
$("ajax-loader").hide();
$("contact_form").innerHTML = "<p style=\"color:red;\">Please try again.</p>";
$("contact_form").show();
}
}
);
return false;
}