How to Send Email with Attachment in PHP

In many PHP projects, we generally implement email send functionality such as user email verification, to reset password, contact us page etc. It is just few lines of code to send these type of email. But sometimes we have to implement email send functionality to send email with attachment in PHP.

We can implement email send with attachment using PHP mail(to,subject,message,headers); function but its a little bit tricky. You have to pass too many details to send attachment.

Also, read:

• Bootstrap Contact Form with Captcha using Ajax and PHP

So here in this tutorial, we have explained how send email with attachment in PHP easily using PHPMailer plugin.

So let’s start the coding. Before begin, take a look at major files used for this tutorial.

• index.php
• email_send.php
• form_validation.js

Step1: Create Email Form HTML
First we will create email Form HTML in index.php. The Form will contain name, email, attachment and message inputs.

<div class="container">
	<h2>Example: Send Email with Attachment in PHP</h2>
	<div id='success_message' class='hidden'>		 
		 <h2>Your Mail Sent Successfully!</h2>
		 <p><strong>You will be in touch soon.</strong></p>		 
	</div>	
	<form action='email_send.php' class="form-email" method="post" id="email-form" enctype='multipart/form-data'>		
		<div id="error">
		</div>
		<div class="form-group">
			<input type="input" class="form-control" placeholder="Name" name="u_name" id="u_name" />
			<span id="check-e"></span>
		</div>
		<div class="form-group">
			<input type="email" class="form-control" placeholder="Email address" name="u_email" id="u_email" />
			<span id="check-e"></span>
		</div>		
		<div class="form-group">
			<input type="file" class="form-control" placeholder="File" name="attach" id="attach" />
		</div>
		<div class="form-group">
			<textarea cols="60" rows="5"  id="message" name="message" placeholder='Message'></textarea>
		</div>
		<hr />
		<div class="form-group">
			<button type="submit" class="btn btn-default" name="email_send" id="email_send">
			Send Email
			</button> 
		</div> 
	</form>	
</div>

Step2: Validate Email Form
Then we will handle functionality to validate email send form inputs in form_validation.js using jQuery form plugin. We will also handle functionality to display messages after email send successfully.

$('document').ready(function() { 
	(function() {
		$('form').ajaxForm({
			beforeSubmit: function() {			
				$("#email-form").validate({
					rules: {
						u_name: {
							required: true,
							minlength : 3
						},
						u_email: {
							required: true,
							email: true
						},
						attach: {
							required: true	
						},			
						message: {
							required: true
						}
					},
					messages: {
						u_name: {
						   required:"Please enter name",
						   minlength: "Please enter a valid name"
						},
						u_email:{ 
						   required: "Please enter your email",
						   minlength: "Please enter a valid email address",
						},
						attach: "Please Choose image",
						message: "Please enter message"
					},		     
				 });
				 var flag= $('#email-form').valid();
				 if(!flag){
					 return false;
				 }
			},			
			complete: function(xhr) {	
				$("#email-form").addClass("hidden");
				$("#success_message").removeClass("hidden");						
			}
		}); 	
	})();	
});

Step3: Implement Email Send with Attachment using PHPMailer
The email send form will be submitted to email_send.php after validation. In this file, we will have form post data and handle functionality to send email with attachment using PHPMailer.

<?php
require 'PHPMailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php';
try {
	if(isset($_POST['email_send'])) {
		$mail = new PHPMailer;
		$mail->FromName   = $_POST['u_name'];
		$to_email = $_POST['u_email'];
		$mail->AddAddress($to_email);
		$mail->From       = "admin@phpzag.com";		
		$mail->Subject  = "Test Email Send using PHP";
		$body = "<table>
			 <tr>
				<th colspan='2'>This is a test email</th>
			 </tr>
			 <tr>
				<td>Name :</td>
				<td>".$_POST['u_name']."</td>
			 </tr>
			 <tr>
			  <td>E-mail : </td>
			  <td>".$_POST['u_email']."</td>
			</tr>	
			<tr>
			  <td>Message : </td>
			  <td>".$_POST['message']."</td>
			</tr>
			<table>";
		$body = preg_replace('/\\\\/','', $body);
		$mail->MsgHTML($body);		
		$mail->IsSendmail();
		$mail->AddReplyTo("admin@phpzag.com");
		$mail->AltBody    = "To view the message, please use an HTML compatible email viewer!"; 
		$mail->WordWrap   = 80; 
		$mail->AddAttachment($_FILES['attach']['tmp_name'], $_FILES['attach']['name']);
		$mail->IsHTML(true);
		$mail->Send();
		echo 'The message has been sent.';
	}
} catch (phpmailerException $e) {
	echo $e->errorMessage();
}
?>

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You can view the live demo from the Demo link and can download the script from the Download link below.
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