Override ActionMailer's mail to address in development environment

Question

In my development environment, I use a copy of the production database when testing locally. For reasons both for testing and simply for protection against sending out test/dev emails to real users, what's the best way to override the mail-to address when in development mode?

I know I can write logic in each mailer, but I have several and it would be nice to put it all in once place. Can I override the mail() method somehow to make the :to parameter always point at an email address I specify?

Answer 1

I use an ActionMailer interceptor so all mails sent while in development or test environments are sent to the same address. Like this:

# config/initializers/override_mail_recipient.rb
if Rails.env.development? or Rails.env.test?
  class OverrideMailRecipient
    def self.delivering_email(mail)
      mail.to = '[email protected]'
    end
    ActionMailer::Base.register_interceptor(OverrideMailRecipient)
  end
end

Answer 2

I think the best option is to use a service like mailtrap.io: http://mailtrap.io or mailcatcher gem: https://rubygems.org/gems/mailcatcher