Sending E-mail using ASP.net through Gmail account (Gmail SMTP Server account)

Introduction

Sending Email is a basic task of a web application for many purposes like- Error logging, Reporting, Newsletters, and Performance alerting as well as for many other reasons.

If you have taken web space somewhere on a web server then you are provided with the Email accounts and SMTP and POP services for sending and receiving E-mails. Some times you don't have SMTP server accounts and you may want to send email. Or Sometimes, for other reasons also you may want to use third-party SMTP sever for sending E-mails .

Gmail is a good solution for this purpose. Gmail provides SMTP and POP access which can be utilized for sending and receiving E-mails.
Here in this tutorial we will be using a Gmail account for sending email by SMTP.

=========================================

Note

1. Gmail has a fixed number of quota for sending emails per day, means you may not be able to send unlimited number of e-mails using Gmail due to anti-spamming restrictions.

2. You may not be able to send same e-mail to unlimited number of people, because Gmail's anti-spamming engine restricts for this too.

So, Gmail can be used for sending limited number of e-mails daily to select people only. If you still need to send numerous e-mails to numerous people you can register for a Google Group account and can use that e-mail address to send email to registered members of that group. I will come up with that tutorial in near future.

Using the code

Requirements:
1. An active Gmail account is required to test this application.
2. Visual Studio 2005

Here we go:

Step 1: Create a new web application in visual studio and add a Web form to it.
Next add a Button to the form and double click this button to bring the code for click event of this button in the code window. Copy paste the following code to the click event.

Step 2: Run the web application and click on the Button to send the mail. Check the E-mail whether you get the mail successfully or not.

Note: Don't forget to replace the To and From fields as well as the correct password for successfully sending the mail.

string from = me@gmail.com; //Replace this with your own correct Gmail Address

string to = you@gmail.com //Replace this with the Email Address to whom you want to send the mail

System.Net.Mail.MailMessage mail = new System.Net.Mail.MailMessage();<o:p />
<o:p> </o:p>mail.To.Add(to);
 mail.From = new MailAddress(from, "One Ghost" , System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);<o:p />
mail.Subject = "This is a test mail" ;<o:p />
mail.SubjectEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;<o:p />
mail.Body = "This is Email Body Text";<o:p />
mail.BodyEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;<o:p />
mail.IsBodyHtml = true ;<o:p />
mail.Priority = MailPriority.High;<o:p />
<o:p />
SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient();<o:p />
//Add the Creddentials- use your own email id and password

 client.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential(from, "Password");
<o:p />
client.Port = 587; // Gmail works on this port<o:p />
<o:p />client.Host = "smtp.gmail.com";<o:p />
client.EnableSsl = true; //Gmail works on Server Secured Layer
       try<o:p />
        {<o:p />
            client.Send(mail);<o:p />
        }<o:p />
        catch (Exception ex)<o:p /> 
        {<o:p />
            Exception ex2 = ex;<o:p />
            string errorMessage = string.Empty;<o:p /> 
            while (ex2 != null)<o:p />
            {<o:p />
                errorMessage += ex2.ToString();<o:p />
                ex2 = ex2.InnerException;<o:p />
            }<o:p />
<o:p> </o:p>  HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(errorMessage );<o:p />
        } // end try 
<pre />

Points of Interest

Some-times it takes 2-3 minutes or more to reach the mail to the destination server. So check after a while, if you do not get it soon.

Please visit my blog for more interesting articles and tutorials.
Find this same tutorial at my blog here.