how to send smtp mail from localhost

Question

I always get this message when trying to send email from my local host.

SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host. Message could not be sent. Mailer Error: SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host.

below is my code: please help

<?php

// $email and $message are the data that is being
// posted to this page from our html contact form
$email = $_REQUEST['email'] ;
$message = $_REQUEST['message'] ;

// When we unzipped PHPMailer, it unzipped to
// public_html/PHPMailer_5.2.0
require("class.phpmailer.php");

$mail = new PHPMailer();

// set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->IsSMTP();

// As this email.php script lives on the same server as our email server
// we are setting the HOST to localhost
$mail->Host = "localhost";  // specify main and backup server

$mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication

// When sending email using PHPMailer, you need to send from a valid email address
// In this case, we setup a test email account with the following credentials:
// email: [email protected]
// pass: password
$mail->Username = "[email protected]";  // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "Nov112014"; // SMTP password

// $email is the user's email address the specified
// on our contact us page. We set this variable at
// the top of this page with:
// $email = $_REQUEST['email'] ;
$mail->From = $email;

// below we want to set the email address we will be sending our email to.
$mail->AddAddress("[email protected]", "Usman Ali Siddiqui");

// set word wrap to 50 characters
$mail->WordWrap = 50;
// set email format to HTML
$mail->IsHTML(true);

$mail->Subject = "You have received feedback from your website Etutionhub!";

// $message is the user's message they typed in
// on our contact us page. We set this variable at
// the top of this page with:
// $message = $_REQUEST['message'] ;
$mail->Body    = $message;
$mail->AltBody = $message;

if(!$mail->Send())
{
   echo "Message could not be sent. <p>";
   echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
   exit;
}

echo "Message has been sent";
?>

Answer 1

1. Open the php.ini. For XAMPP, it is located in C:\XAMPP\php\php.ini. Find out if you are using WAMP or LAMP server.
   Note: Make a backup of php.ini file.

2. Search [mail function] in the php.ini file.

   You can find like below.
   [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 = postmaster@localhost
   

   Change the localhost to the smtp server name of your ISP. No need to change the smtp_port. Leave it as 25. Change sendmail_from from postmaster@localhost to your domain email address which will be used as from address.

   So for me, it will become like this.

   [mail function]
   ; For Win32 only.
   SMTP = smtp.example.com
   smtp_port = 25
   ; For Win32 only.
   sendmail_from = [email protected]
   

3. Restart the XAMPP or WAMP(apache server) so that changes will start working.

4. Now try to send the mail using the mail() function.

   mail("[email protected]","Success","Great, Localhost Mail works");
   

Mail will be sent to [email protected] from the localhost with Subject line "Success" and body "Great, Localhost Mail works".