A mail driver to quickly preview mail

This package can display a small overlay whenever a mail is sent. The overlay contains a link to the mail that was just sent.

This can be handy when testing out emails in a local environment.

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Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require spatie/laravel-mail-preview

Configuring the mail transport

This package contains a mail transport called preview. We recommend to only use this transport in non-production environments. To use the preview transport, change the mailers.smtp.transport to preview in your config/mail.php file:

// in config/mail.php

'mailers' => [
    'smtp' => [
        'transport' => 'preview',
        // ...
    ],
    // ...
],

Registering the preview middleware route

The package can display a link to sent mails whenever they are sent. To use this feature, you must add the Spatie\MailPreview\Http\Middleware\AddMailPreviewPopupToResponse middleware to the web middleware group in your kernel.

// in app/Http/Kernel.php

protected $middlewareGroups = [
    'web' => [
        // other middleware
        
        \Spatie\MailPreview\Http\Middleware\AddMailPreviewOverlayToResponse::class,
    ],
    
    // ...
];

You must also add the mailPreview to your routes file. Typically, the routes file will be located at routes/web.php.

// in routes/web.php

Route::mailPreview();

This will register a route to display sent mails at /spatie-mail-preview. To customize the URL, pass the URL you want to the macro.

Route::mailPreview('custom-url-where-sent-mails-will-be-shown');

Publishing the config file

Optionally, you can publish the config file with:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Spatie\MailPreview\MailPreviewServiceProvider" --tag="laravel-mail-preview-config"

This is the content of the config file that will be published at config/mail-preview.php:

return [
    /*
     * By default, the overlay will only be shown and mail will only be stored
     * when the application is in debug mode.
     */
    'enabled' => env('APP_DEBUG', false),

    /*
     * All mails will be stored in the given directory.
     */
    'storage_path' => storage_path('email-previews'),

    /*
     * This option determines how long generated preview files will be kept.
     */
    'maximum_lifetime_in_seconds' => 60,

    /*
     * When enabled, a link to mail will be added to the response
     * every time a mail is sent.
     */
    'show_link_to_preview' => true,

    /*
     * Determines how long the preview pop up should remain visible.
     *
     * Set this to `false` if the popup should stay visible.
     */
    'popup_timeout_in_seconds' => 8,
];

Publishing the views

Optionally, you can publish the views that render the preview overlay and the mail itself.

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Spatie\MailPreview\MailPreviewServiceProvider" --tag="laravel-mail-preview-views"

You can modify the views that will be published at resources/views/vendor/mail-preview to your liking.

Usage

Everytime an email is sent, an .html and .eml file will be saved in the directory specified in the storage_path of the mail-preview config file. The name includes the first recipient and the subject:

1457904864_john_at_example_com_invoice_000234.html
1457904864_john_at_example_com_invoice_000234.eml

You can open the .html file in a web browser. The .eml file in your default email client to have a realistic look of the final output.

Preview in a web browser

When you open the .html file in a web browser you'll be able to see how your email will look.

At the beginning of the generated file you'll find an HTML comment with all the message info:

<!--
From:{"info@acme.com":"Acme HQ"},
to:{"jack@gmail.com":"Jack Black"},
reply-to:{"info@acme.com"},
cc:[{"finance@acme.com":"Acme Finance"}, {"management@acme.com":"Acme Management"}],
bcc:null,
subject:Invoice #000234
-->

Events

Whenever a mail is stored on disk, the Spatie\MailPreview\Events\MailStoredEvent will be fired. It has three public properties:

• message: an instance of Swift_Mime_SimpleMessage
• pathToHtmlVersion: the path to the html version of the sent mail
• pathToEmlVersion: the path to the email version of the sent mail

Making assertions against sent mails

Currently, using Laravel's Mail::fake you cannot make any assertions against the content of a mail, as the using the fake will not render the mail.

The SentMails facade provided this package does allow you to make asserts against the content.

This allows you to make assertions on the content of a mail, without having the mailable in scope.

// in a test

Artisan::call(CommandThatSendsMail::class)`

Spatie\MailPreview\Facades\SentMails::assertLastContains('something in your mail');

Let's explain other available assertions method using this mailable as example.

namespace App\Mail;

use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;

class MyNewSongMailable extends Mailable
{
    public function build()
    {
        $this
            ->to('ringo@example.com')
            ->cc('paul@examle.com')
            ->bcc('john@examle.com')
            ->subject('Here comes the sun')
            ->html("It's been a long cold lonely winter");
    }
}

In your code you can send that mailable with:

Mail::send(new MyNewSongMailable());

In your tests you can assert that the mail was sent using the assertSent function. You should pass a callable to assertSent which will get an instance of SentMail to it. Each sent mail will be passed to the callable. If the callable returns true the assertions passes.

use Spatie\MailPreview\Facades\SentMails;
use \Spatie\MailPreview\SentMails\SentMail;

SentMails::assertSent(fn (SentMail $mail) => $mail->bodyContains('winter')) // will pass
SentMails::assertSent(fn (SentMail $mail) => $mail->bodyContains('spring')) // will not pass

You can use as many assertion methods on the SentMail as you like.

SentMails::assertSent(function (SentMail $mail)  {
    return
        $mail->subjectContains('sun') &&
        $mail->hasTo('ringo@example.com')
        $mail->bodyContains('winter');

The Spatie\MailPreview\Facades\SentMails has the following assertions methods:

• assertCount(int $expectedCount): assert how many mails were sent
• assertLastContains(string $expectedSubstring): assert that the body of the last sent mail contains a given substring
• assertSent($findMailCallable, int $expectedCount = 1): explained above
• assertTimesSent(int $expectedCount, Closure $findMail)
• assertNotSent(Closure $findMail)

Additionally, the Spatie\MailPreview\Facades\SentMails has these methods:

• all: returns an array of sent mails. Each item will be an instance of sentMail
• count(): returns the amount of mails sent
• last: returns an instance of SentMail for the last sent mail. If no mail was sent null will be returned.
• lastContains: returns true if the body of the last sent mail contains the given substring
• timesSent($findMailCallable): returns the amount of mails the were sent and that passed the given callable

The sentMail class provides these assertions:

• assertSubjectContains($expectedSubstring)
• assertFrom($expectedAddress)`
• assertTo$expectedAddress)`
• assertCc($expectedAddress)`
• assertBcc($expectedAddress)`
• assertContains($substring): will pass if the body of the mail contains the substring

Additionally, sentMail contains these methods:

• subject(): return the body of a mail
• to(): returns all to recipients as an array
• cc(): returns all cc recipients as an array
• bcc(): returns all bcc recipients as an array
• body(): returns the body of a mail
• subjectContains): returns a boolean
• hasFrom($expectedAddress): return a boolean
• hasTo($expectedAddress): return a boolean
• hasCc($expectedAddress): return a boolean
• hasBcc($expectedAddress): return a boolean

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

UPGRADING

Please see UPGRADING for what to do to switch over from themsaid/laravel-mail-preview, and how to upgrade to newer major versions.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Security Vulnerabilities

Please review our security policy on how to report security vulnerabilities.

Credits

• Freek Van der Herten
• Mohamed Said
• All Contributors

The initial version of this package was created by Mohamed Said, who graciously entrusted this package to us at Spatie.

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.