Sending Mail with Devise and Gmail SMTP Server
In today's digital age, sending emails has become an essential part of our daily lives. Whether it's for personal or professional purposes, we rely heavily on emails to communicate and share information. As a result, having a reliable and efficient email server is crucial.
One popular option for sending emails is using Gmail's SMTP server. And if you're building a web application, implementing this feature can be easily done with the help of Devise, a popular authentication solution for Rails applications. In this article, we'll explore how to set up and configure Devise to send emails through Gmail's SMTP server.
What is SMTP and why use Gmail's SMTP server?
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the standard protocol used for sending emails over the internet. It is responsible for routing emails from the sender to the recipient's email server. When setting up an email server, you have the option to use your own SMTP server or a third-party SMTP service.
Gmail's SMTP server is a popular choice for developers and businesses because of its reliability, security, and ease of use. It allows you to send up to 2,000 emails per day for free, making it a cost-effective solution for small to medium-sized businesses. Additionally, Gmail's SMTP server uses SSL/TLS encryption, ensuring that your emails are sent securely.
Setting up Devise to send emails through Gmail SMTP server
Firstly, make sure you have Devise installed in your Rails application. If not, you can follow the installation guide on their official website.
Next, we need to configure Devise to use Gmail's SMTP server. Open your application's configuration file (config/environments/development.rb) and add the following code:
```ruby
config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { host: 'localhost', port: 3000 }
config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
config.action_mailer.smtp_settings = {
address: 'smtp.gmail.com',
port: 587,
domain: 'gmail.com',
user_name: '[your gmail email address]',
password: '[your gmail password]',
authentication: 'plain',
enable_starttls_auto: true
}
```
Make sure to replace `[your gmail email address]` and `[your gmail password]` with your actual Gmail credentials.
To test if the configuration is successful, let's create a Devise mailer view. In your terminal, run the following command:
```bash
rails g devise:views
```
This will generate all the necessary views for Devise, including the mailer views. Open the `app/views/devise/mailer/confirmation_instructions.html.erb` file and add the following code:
```html
<p>Welcome <%= @resource.email %>!</p>
<p>You can confirm your account email through the link below:</p>
<p><%= link_to 'Confirm my account', confirmation_url(@resource, confirmation_token: @token) %></p>
```
This view will be used to send confirmation instructions to users after they sign up for your application.
Lastly, let's create a user and send a confirmation email. In your terminal, run the following command:
```bash
rails c
```
This will open up the Rails console. Type in the following commands:
```ruby
user = User.create(email: '[your email]', password: 'password', password_confirmation: 'password')
```
Replace `[your email]` with the email you would like to use for testing. This will create a new user in your database.
Next, let's trigger the confirmation email by calling the `send_confirmation_instructions` method on the user object:
```ruby
user.send_confirmation_instructions
```
If everything is set up correctly, you should receive an email in your inbox from your Gmail account. Congratulations, you have successfully configured Devise to send emails through Gmail's SMTP server!
Conclusion
In this article, we have explored how to set up and configure Devise to send emails through Gmail's SMTP server. This is a simple and effective way to ensure that your emails are delivered securely and reliably. With this feature in place, you can now focus on building your web application and leave the email delivery to Devise and Gmail's SMTP server.
