Sending Email in Ruby Language

Leave a Comment / Programming Languages / By piembsystech

dia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)">Ruby programming language, sending emails is made easy with a variety of libraries and tools. In this post, we’ll explore how to send email using Ruby, focusing on the popular library called Action Mailer.

Setting up Action Mailer

Action Mailer is a built-in component of Ruby on Rails, a widely used web application framework. However, you can also use Action Mailer in standalone Ruby applications. To get started, make sure you have Ruby installed on your system. You can check your Ruby version by running:

ruby -v

If Ruby is not installed, you can download and install it from the official website.

Installing Action Mailer

To use Action Mailer, you’ll need to install the gem. Open your terminal and run:

gem install actionmailer

Creating a New Ruby Project

Let’s begin by creating a new Ruby project. Create a directory for your project and navigate into it:

mkdir email_project
cd email_project

Next, initialize a new Ruby project with the following command:

bundle init

This command creates a Gemfile where you can specify the gems (libraries) your project will use. Open the Gemfile in a text editor and add the following line to include the Action Mailer gem:

gem 'actionmailer'

Save the Gemfile, and then run the following command to install the gems:

bundle install

Setting Up Action Mailer

Now that you have the necessary libraries installed, it’s time to set up Action Mailer in your Ruby project. Create a new Ruby file, e.g., send_email.rb, and require ‘action_mailer’ at the top:

require 'action_mailer'

Next, you’ll need to configure Action Mailer. Create an initializer, e.g., mailer_setup.rb, to define your email settings:

# mailer_setup.rb
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
  address: 'smtp.example.com',
  port: 587,
  user_name: 'your_email@example.com',
  password: 'your_password',
  authentication: 'plain',
  enable_starttls_auto: true
}

Replace the example settings with the credentials and SMTP server information specific to your email provider.

In your send_email.rb file, include this initializer:

require_relative 'mailer_setup'

Sending an Email

With Action Mailer configured, you can now send an email. Create a new method in your send_email.rb file to send an email:

def send_email
  mail = Mail.new do
    from 'your_email@example.com'
    to 'recipient@example.com'
    subject 'Hello, Ruby Email!'
    body 'This is the email body.'
  end

  mail.deliver
end

This method creates a new email with a sender, recipient, subject, and body. The deliver method sends the email.

Sending Your Email

To send your email, call the send_email method in your send_email.rb file:

send_email

Now, you can run your Ruby script:

ruby send_email.rb

And voila! Your email will be sent using Action Mailer in Ruby.