how to send smtp mail from localhost - php

Question

I always get this message when trying to send email from my local host.
SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host. Message could not be sent.
Mailer Error: SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host.
below is my code: please help
<?php
// $email and $message are the data that is being
// posted to this page from our html contact form
$email = $_REQUEST['email'] ;
$message = $_REQUEST['message'] ;
// When we unzipped PHPMailer, it unzipped to
// public_html/PHPMailer_5.2.0
require("class.phpmailer.php");
$mail = new PHPMailer();
// set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->IsSMTP();
// As this email.php script lives on the same server as our email server
// we are setting the HOST to localhost
$mail->Host = "localhost"; // specify main and backup server
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // turn on SMTP authentication
// When sending email using PHPMailer, you need to send from a valid email address
// In this case, we setup a test email account with the following credentials:
// email: send_from_PHPMailer#bradm.inmotiontesting.com
// pass: password
$mail->Username = "project#reliable.com.pk"; // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "Nov112014"; // SMTP password
// $email is the user's email address the specified
// on our contact us page. We set this variable at
// the top of this page with:
// $email = $_REQUEST['email'] ;
$mail->From = $email;
// below we want to set the email address we will be sending our email to.
$mail->AddAddress("mani9418#gmail.com", "Usman Ali Siddiqui");
// set word wrap to 50 characters
$mail->WordWrap = 50;
// set email format to HTML
$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->Subject = "You have received feedback from your website Etutionhub!";
// $message is the user's message they typed in
// on our contact us page. We set this variable at
// the top of this page with:
// $message = $_REQUEST['message'] ;
$mail->Body = $message;
$mail->AltBody = $message;
if(!$mail->Send())
{
echo "Message could not be sent. <p>";
echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
exit;
}
echo "Message has been sent";
?>

Answer 1

Open the php.ini. For XAMPP, it is located in C:\XAMPP\php\php.ini. Find out if you are using WAMP or LAMP server.
Note: Make a backup of php.ini file.
Search [mail function] in the php.ini file.
You can find like below.
[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/smtp
SMTP = localhost
; http://php.net/smtp-port
smtp_port = 25
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/sendmail-from
;sendmail_from = postmaster#localhost
Change the localhost to the smtp server name of your ISP. No need to change the smtp_port. Leave it as 25. Change sendmail_from from postmaster#localhost to your domain email address which will be used as from address.
So for me, it will become like this.
[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
SMTP = smtp.example.com
smtp_port = 25
; For Win32 only.
sendmail_from = info#example.com
Restart the XAMPP or WAMP(apache server) so that changes will start working.
Now try to send the mail using the mail() function.
mail("example#example.com","Success","Great, Localhost Mail works");
Mail will be sent to example#example.com from the localhost with Subject line "Success" and body "Great, Localhost Mail works".

Answer 2

You can add this line
$mail->SMTPSecure = "ssl";
after
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;