How do I delay sending mails with PHPMailer for multiple days? - php

Question

I'm trying to create a mailing system for our library. People receive an e-mail when they requested a book. However, I want them to receive an e-mail one day before the hand-in date as well.
So I'm not looking for a sleep script code, I'm looking for a code that can maybe store the data on the server until the hand-in date arrived.
I'm using Joomla 3.5.1 for our website, this is the code for the PHPMailer:
jimport('joomla.mail.mail');
try{
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$body = $mailmsgadmin;
$mail->IsSMTP(); // telling the class to use SMTP
$mail->Host = "example.host.com"; // SMTP server
$mail->SMTPDebug = 2; // enables SMTP debug information (for testing)
// 1 = errors and messages
// 2 = messages only
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // enable SMTP authentication
$mail->SMTPSecure = "ssl"; // sets the prefix to the servier
$mail->Host = "example.host.com"; // sets the SMTP server
$mail->Port = 25; // set the SMTP port for the GMAIL server
$mail->Username = "email"; // SMTP account username
$mail->Password = "password"; // SMTP account password
$mail->SetFrom('email', 'First Last');
$mail->AddReplyTo($mailuseremail, $mailusername);
$mail->Subject = $mailsubject;
$mail->AltBody = "To view the message, please use an HTML compatible email viewer!";
$mail->MsgHTML($body);
$mail->AddAddress("Users e-mail","Users name");
if(!$mail->Send()) {
JError::raiseWarning( 'SOME_ERROR_CODE', $mail->ErrorInfo);
}
} catch (Exception $e) {JError::raiseWarning( 'SOME_ERROR_CODE', $e->getMessage());}

Answer 1

Instead of trying to get PHPMailer delay the sending, add your email details to a database table. And then write a cron job that checks the table for emails that need to be sent.