Node.js Email

Last modified on: October 20, 2024

<div class="flex-shrink-0 flex flex-col relative items-end">
<div>
<div class="pt-0">
<div class="gizmo-bot-avatar flex h-8 w-8 items-center justify-center overflow-hidden rounded-full">
<div class="relative p-1 rounded-sm flex items-center justify-center bg-token-main-surface-primary text-token-text-primary h-8 w-8">&nbsp;</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="group/conversation-turn relative flex w-full min-w-0 flex-col agent-turn">
<div class="flex-col gap-1 md:gap-3">
<div class="flex max-w-full flex-col flex-grow">
<div class="min-h-8 text-message flex w-full flex-col items-end gap-2 whitespace-normal break-words [.text-message+&amp;]:mt-5" dir="auto" data-message-author-role="assistant" data-message-id="8ce38bef-7302-43b7-ab74-8ec732ece03c" data-message-model-slug="gpt-4o-mini">
<div class="flex w-full flex-col gap-1 empty:hidden first:pt-[3px]">
<div class="markdown prose w-full break-words dark:prose-invert light">
<h3>Node.js Email: A Comprehensive Guide</h3>
<p>Sending emails is a common feature in many web applications, and Node.js makes it straightforward to implement this functionality using various packages. This guide will focus on using the <strong>Nodemailer</strong> package, a popular and powerful library for sending emails from Node.js applications.</p>
<hr />
<h3>What is Nodemailer?</h3>
<p><strong>Nodemailer</strong> is a module for Node.js applications to send emails easily. It supports various transport methods, including SMTP, and provides a simple API for composing and sending emails.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Setting Up a Node.js Project</h3>
<p>To get started, you need to set up a new Node.js project. Follow these steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>Create a new directory for your project</strong>:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">bash</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>mkdir email-sender
cd email-sender</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Initialize a new Node.js project</strong>:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">bash</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>npm init -y</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Install Nodemailer</strong>:</p>
<p>You will need to install Nodemailer. Run the following command:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">bash</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>npm install nodemailer</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<h3>Sending an Email with Nodemailer</h3>
<p>Next, create a simple server that can send emails using Nodemailer. Follow these steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>Create a new file named <code>server.js</code></strong>:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">bash</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>touch server.js</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Open <code>server.js</code> and add the following code</strong>:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">javascript</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');

// Create a transporter object using the default SMTP transport
const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    host: 'smtp.example.com', // Replace with your SMTP server host
    port: 587, // Replace with your SMTP port
    secure: false, // true for 465, false for other ports
    auth: {
        user: 'your-email@example.com', // Replace with your email address
        pass: 'your-email-password' // Replace with your email password
    }
});

// Set up email data
const mailOptions = {
    from: '"Sender Name" &lt;your-email@example.com&gt;', // Sender address
    to: 'recipient@example.com', // List of recipients
    subject: 'Hello from Node.js', // Subject line
    text: 'This is a test email sent from a Node.js application!', // Plain text body
    html: '&lt;b&gt;This is a test email sent from a Node.js application!&lt;/b&gt;' // HTML body
};

// Send mail
transporter.sendMail(mailOptions, (error, info) =&gt; {
    if (error) {
        return console.log(`Error: ${error}`);
    }
    console.log(`Message sent: ${info.messageId}`);
});</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>Explanation of the Code</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Nodemailer Configuration</strong>: You create a transporter object that specifies the SMTP server details, including the host, port, and authentication credentials.</li>
<li><strong>Email Options</strong>: The <code>mailOptions</code> object contains details about the email, including the sender's address, recipient's address, subject, and body (both plain text and HTML).</li>
<li><strong>Sending the Email</strong>: The <code>sendMail</code> function sends the email using the defined options. If an error occurs, it logs the error; otherwise, it confirms that the message was sent successfully.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3>Testing the Email Sender</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>Replace the placeholder values</strong> in the <code>server.js</code> file with your SMTP server details and email credentials.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Run the server</strong>:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">bash</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>node server.js</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Check your email inbox</strong> to see if the email was received. You should see the message sent from your Node.js application.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<h3>Sending Emails with HTML Templates</h3>
<p>For more complex email content, you may want to use HTML templates. You can create a separate HTML file and read it using the <code>fs</code> module.</p>
<h4>Example: Sending an Email with an HTML Template</h4>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>Create an HTML file named <code>emailTemplate.html</code></strong>:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">html</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-markup"><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE html&gt;
&lt;html lang="en"&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
    &lt;meta charset="UTF-8"&gt;
    &lt;meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"&gt;
    &lt;title&gt;Email&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
&lt;body&gt;
    &lt;h1&gt;Hello!&lt;/h1&gt;
    &lt;p&gt;This is a test email sent from a Node.js application!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Modify your <code>server.js</code> to read the HTML file</strong>:</p>
<div class="dark bg-gray-950 contain-inline-size rounded-md border-[0.5px] border-token-border-medium relative">
<div class="flex items-center text-token-text-secondary bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-4 py-2 text-xs font-sans justify-between rounded-t-md h-9">javascript</div>
<div class="sticky top-9 md:top-[5.75rem]">
<div class="absolute bottom-0 right-2 flex h-9 items-center">
<div class="flex items-center rounded bg-token-main-surface-secondary px-2 font-sans text-xs text-token-text-secondary">
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    host: 'smtp.example.com', 
    port: 587,
    secure: false,
    auth: {
        user: 'your-email@example.com',
        pass: 'your-email-password'
    }
});

const emailTemplate = fs.readFileSync(path.join(__dirname, 'emailTemplate.html'), 'utf-8');

const mailOptions = {
    from: '"Sender Name" &lt;your-email@example.com&gt;',
    to: 'recipient@example.com',
    subject: 'Hello from Node.js',
    html: emailTemplate // Use the HTML template
};

transporter.sendMail(mailOptions, (error, info) =&gt; {
    if (error) {
        return console.log(`Error: ${error}`);
    }
    console.log(`Message sent: ${info.messageId}`);
});</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>In this guide, you learned how to send emails from a Node.js application using the Nodemailer package. By following these steps, you can implement email functionality in your applications easily.</p>
<p>You covered:</p>
<ul>
<li>Setting up a basic Node.js project.</li>
<li>Configuring Nodemailer to send emails.</li>
<li>Sending plain text and HTML emails.</li>
<li>Using HTML templates for email content.</li>
</ul>
<p>With this knowledge, you can integrate email features into your Node.js applications, enhancing user communication and engagement.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Web Technology View More