Troubleshooting PHP Mail [duplicate]

Question

How can I check a problem with mail being sent on my server? I run a simple test:

if(mail($to, $subject, $message)) {
echo 'Mail Sent';
}

which the test outputs the text; but, no mail ever arrives.

How can I go about tracking down the issue?

Answer 1

That is quite a long story. A few bullet points (Assuming that mail() returns true and there are no errors in the error log) :

• Does the sender address ("From") belong to a domain on your server? If not, make it so.
• Is your server on a blacklist (e.g. check IP on spamhaus.org)? This is a remote possibility with shared hosting.
• Are mails filtered by a spam filter? Open an account with a freemailer that has a spam folder and find out. Also, try sending mail to an address without a spam filter.
• Do you possibly need the fifth parameter "-f" of mail() to add a sender address? (See mail() command in the PHP manual)
• If you have access to log files, check those, of course, as suggested above.
• Do you check the "from:" address for possible bounce mails ("Returned to sender")? You can also set up a separate "errors-to" address.

For german speakers, I have written a quite exhaustive "what to do" on this issue some time ago. See here.

Answer 2

Following Myles, if you are on a Linux box, do this on the command line:

# echo “Body text.” | mail -s “Hello world” [email protected]

If you don't receive that email, you have a problem with the mail system on that box. That is a different question from the PHP question you asked.