Send bulk message using php mailer with ajax - php

Question

I need assistance with sending bulk email.
This is this scanario.
A dropdown contains the categories of emails to be fetched. The selected (value) is then passed through a function that obtains all the emails per the selected value from db. And the emails passed to the mailer's addAddress method.
The sql query works fine but my headers show only the selected value from the network session and not all the returned emails. I am including both php codes and the ajax codes and also the response headers.
PHP block
$accountid = $_POST['accountid'];
$selectedstatus = $_POST['bulkrecipients']; //From dropdown
$emailtype = $_POST['emailtype'];
$subject = sanitize_text($_POST['bulksubject']);
$message = sanitize_text($_POST['bulkmessage']);
//Pass recipientemails to function and extract individual emails.
$getemails = getAllEmailsFromStatus($selectedstatus , $_SESSION['username']);
$name = 'Tester';
$mail = new PHPMailer;
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->SMTPKeepAlive = true;
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Username = "";
$mail->Password = '';
$mail->Port = 465;
$mail->SMTPSecure = "ssl";
$mail->isHTML(true);
$mail->setFrom('testproject222', $name);
$mail->Subject = ("$subject");
$mail->Body = $message;
foreach ($getemails as $row) {
try {
$mail->addAddress($row['email']);
} catch (Exception $ex) {
echo 'Invalid address skipped: ' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . '<br>';
continue;
}
try {
if ($mail->send()) {
$status = "success";
$response = "Email is sent";
//Save the contact details to db.
saveAllEmployerEmails($accountid , $subject, emailtype, $message );
} else {
$status = "failed";
$response = 'Something is wrong ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
exit(json_encode(array("status" => $status, "response" => $response)));
} catch (Exception $ex) {
echo 'Mailer Error (' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . ') ' . $mail->ErrorInfo . '<br>';
$mail->getSMTPInstance()->reset();
}
$mail->clearAddresses();
$mail->clearAttachments();
}
Ajax
function sendBulk() {
var url = "./inc/emailjobs.php";
var accountid = $("#accountid");
var emailtype = $("#emailtype");
var recipientemails = $("#bulkrecipients");
var bulksubject = $("#bulksubject");
var bulkmessage = $('#' + 'bulkmessage').html( tinymce.get('bulkmessage').getContent() );
if (isNotEmpty(recipientemails) /*&& isNotEmptyTextArea("bulkmessage")*/) {
$.ajax({
url: url,
method: 'POST',
cache: false,
dataType: 'json',
beforeSend: function () {
$('#bulksendbtn').text("Sending...");
},
data: {
accountid: accountid.val(),
emailtype: emailtype.val(),
bulksubject: bulksubject.val(),
bulkrecipients: recipientemails.val(),
bulkmessage: bulkmessage.val()
}
, success: function (response) {
$('#bulkemailForm')[0].reset();
$('.bulksendmessage').text("Emails Sent.");
$('#bulksendbtn').text("Sent");
},
});
}
}
Response Form header data
accountid: 2
emailtype: bulk
bulksubject: Test
bulkrecipients: shortlisted
bulkmessage: <p>Testing... </p>
Instead of the 'shortlisted' for bulkrecipients, I expect the email addresses. I was hoping to see 2 returned emails. The 'shortlisted' is supposed to be used to obtain the emails for that category (shortlisted).

Answer 1

Your code looks generally correct, but this is confusing:
$mail->setFrom('Test', $name);
//$mail->From = ("$email");
$email isn't defined, and Test is not a valid from address. I have a suspicion you're trying to use an arbitrary user-submitted email address as the from address. That will not work with Gmail because Gmail does not allow setting arbitrary from addresses; it will only let you send as the account owner (what you put in Username), or aliases that you preset in gmail settings. If you try to use anything else, it will simply ignore it and use your account address instead. Is this what you meant by "only the selected value from the network session"?
It's entirely reasonable for gmail to do this since almost by definition anything other than your account address is likely to be forgery, and nobody likes that.
If you want to send email where replies will go to a user-submitted address, use your own address in the from address, and use the user-submitted address as a reply-to. See the contact form example provided with PHPMailer for how to do that.