How do I send HTML formatted mail using PHP?

Question

Trying to send a html email via mail(), however gmail just displays the email as plain text, no mark up, eg:

mail("blah@blah.com", "subject", "<i>Italic Text</i>");

just appears as

<i>Italic Text</i>

Any ideas?

possible duplicate of [Use HTML formatting in email sent from PHP](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4971322/use-html-formatting-in-email-sent-from-php) — mario, Apr 19 '11 at 11:09
possible duplicate of [Php mail: how to send html?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4897215/php-mail-how-to-send-html) — mario, Apr 19 '11 at 11:10
possible duplicate of [Include html in email](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4916477/include-html-in-email) — mario, Apr 19 '11 at 11:11
possible duplicate of [How to add html codes in email?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5055757/how-to-add-html-codes-in-email) — mario, Apr 19 '11 at 11:12
sorry, my apologies, didn't notice I skipped the subject parameter — DexCurl, Apr 19 '11 at 11:31

score 15 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:06

15

You have to specify that the contents of the mail is HTML:

mail("blah@blah.com", "subject", "<i>Italic Text</i>", "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1");

answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:06

user254875486

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:06

7

See example 4 on this page:

answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:06

Daniel A. White

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:07

You need to have a properly formed html doc:

$msg = "<html><head></head><body><i>Italic Text</i></body></html>";

Edit:

And send headers:

$headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";

mail("blah@blah.com", $msg, $headers);

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:07

3

I believe you must set the content-type to text/html in your headers.

Something like the string "Content-type:text/html"

Where to "insert" this header? Take a look at the function reference at http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php

answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:07

bluefoot

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 19 '11 at 11:10

In order for it to be properly interpreted, you must also set the headers in the email, especially:

$headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";

You should also set the other usual headers. The message can finally be sent like this:

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

You should refer to the php manual mail page for more information.

5 Answers5