How do I setup Sparkpost smtp

Question

I am a bit confused with setting up Sparkpost SMTP. I need to send automatic email from my website to clients, for eg. a welcome message when they register, a reminder email for consultation etc. The website will automatically generate the email.

On Sparkpost they show:

define('PHPMAILERHOST', 'smtp.sparkpostmail.com');
$phpmailer_smtpuser = 'SMTP_Injection';
$phpmailer_smtppassword = '<API_KEY>';
define('PHPMAILERPORT', 587);

However when I searched for more information on Stackoverflow, I found this:

$config['mailtype'] = "html";
$config['protocol'] = 'smtp';
$config['smtp_host'] = 'smtp.sparkpostmail.com';
$config['smtp_user'] = 'user';
$config['smtp_pass'] = 'password';
$config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls';
$config['smtp_port'] = '587';
$condig['crlf'] = "\r\n";
$config['newline'] = "\r\n";

In light of the above, will the following work:

//Sparkpost configuration
$config['mailtype'] = "html";
$config['protocol'] = 'smtp';
$config['smtp_host'] = 'smtp.sparkpostmail.com';
$config['smtp_user'] = 'user';
$config['smtp_pass'] = 'password';
$config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls';
$config['smtp_port'] = '587';
$condig['crlf'] = "\r\n";
$config['newline'] = "\r\n";

//My email code
$to_email = "$Email";
$from_email = "me@mydomain";
$subject = "Email Subject";
$comment =  "<html>Email message</html>";

// Always set content-type when sending HTML email
$headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type:text/html;charset=UTF-8" . "\r\n";

// More headers
$headers .= "From: Info <" . $from_email . ">\r\n";
//send email
mail($to_email, "$subject", $comment, $headers);

The reason I was asking, I don't want to setup, test and emails go through and while I am under the impression that my Sparkpost setup is working, the email goes through my host.

A random array doesn't automatically become the settings for sending e-mail. As it stands, it looks likely the e-mail just gets sent via the default system MTA rather than via SparkPost. — Jonnix, Feb 18 '19 at 10:17
@JonStirling. Thanks. Can you help me with the correct method on how to use Sparkpost SMTP? — CharlesWashington, Feb 18 '19 at 10:46
My suggestion is to use a library like PHPMailer, and follow the instructions on how to use, with the details you've been provided for connecting to SparkPost. A quick google search should provide you everything you need. — Jonnix, Feb 18 '19 at 10:52

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 18 '19 at 15:12

If you want to use SparkPost you can either use their library or, as suggested by Jon Stirling, use PHPMailer with SparkPost configurations.

Use SparkPost PHP Library

Read installation instructions here
Once installed, see the examples directory for many use cases

Use PHPMailer

Include phpMailer class in your script
Configure it to use SparkPost like below

$mail = new PHPMailer;
$mail->SMTPDebug = 3;
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.sparkpostmail.com';
$mail->Port = 587;
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Username = 'SMTP_Injection';
$mail->Password = '<API_KEY>'; //make sure you add SMTP permission to API Key
$mail->setFrom('testing@sparkpostbox.com'); //you can use w/o adding your sending domain like ~50 messages. Once you add your sending domain, use that. 
$mail->addAddress('recipient@domain.com');
$mail->Subject = 'Test subject';
$mail->Body    = 'Hello World!';
$mail->send();

How do I setup Sparkpost smtp

1 Answers1