How to send emails using Node.JS?

Sending emails with Node.js is simple — you just have to choose which way to do this. In this article, we are looking at the 3 most common ways. We are also discussing the benefits and drawbacks of some of these methods and the capabilities they provide.

Options for sending emails in Node.js

There are different ways you can use to send emails from Node.js, but one may be more suitable for your project than the other. Let’s consider the options you have.

Sending emails with Node.js and SMTP

One of the ways of sending emails from Node JS is by using an SMTP server, which transmits the message through a text file exchange. It is, in fact, the most common way to send emails. So how do you do that?

First, you have to set up and integrate your SMTP server into your web application. Then, you can start sending your messages using this outbound server. The email will travel from your server to one of your recipient’s email clients.

On its way between the servers, the message goes through authentication to confirm that your sender’s reputation is safe. If successful, your message reaches the receiving SMTP server, gets authenticated there, and appears in the destination inbox.

Advantages of using SMTP

By sending emails using SMTP, you get full control of all aspects of email sending, as well as you can get some valuable features, like analytics and report building. Besides, since this is a widely adopted method, it is simple to get the hang of it in terms of integration and setup.

Hindrances of using SMTP

While using SMTP is widespread, there are some challenges to sending emails this way. Here they are:

• the server is susceptible to security threats — phishing, DDoS attacks, data breaches, and other issues can easily affect your SMTP server;
• setting up and using your own SMTP server requires lots of maintenance costs and effort to ensure good sender reputation and security;
• email delivery via SMTP can be rather slow because of the several stages of authentication and communication between servers.

With this being said, SMTP can be an easy solution to set up and integrate, but it may be challenging when it comes to email sending itself.

Send emails in Node.js and email API

Another way of sending emails via Node.js is through email API. This solution does not require you to host any SMTP servers of your own. Instead, you use APIs of third-party services, like Mailtrap’s Email API or Amazon Simple Email Service.

With email APIs, you get to see the flow of your emails and other related details while also delegating the complex aspect of architecture behind email sending to the service provider. Email API apps usually allow for fast and easy integration and provide valuable features to the users.

So to start using an API for your email sending, you just have to choose a vendor, sign up for it and proceed with the integration to your web app.

Advantages of using a transactional email API

A transactional email API is a simple, worry-free solution for sending emails with Node JS. Here are the benefits you get:

• it’s easy to install and use — there’s plenty of helpful documentation;
• it offers a wide range of useful features, like analytics on campaign success tracking, open rate and others, as well as reporting;
• it’s scalable with no additional investments required;
• it doesn’t require an in-house expert for maintenance and troubleshooting;
• it’s cost-saving compared to using SMTP.

As you can see, there are some meaningful advantages of choosing email APIs over hosting an SMTP server.

Hindrances of using a transactional email API

While there are only a few drawbacks to using a third-party service for email APIs, these can make a drastic impact. One of the issues with this solution is that you have to rely on a third party completely, including the security and troubleshooting of your email delivery. So while this is convenient, it may pose serious security and performance risks to your project.

Then, you need to integrate every communication channel separately — these are push notifications, chat apps, SMS, and others, which can be a demanding job. Similarly, if you decide to switch to email API from a different provider, you can’t just migrate. Instead, you’ll have to go through the entire process of setup and building from scratch.

Sending emails in Node.js with Nodemailer

Nodemailer is a module used to send emails through Node.js. It is a popular package for this purpose because it unites various essential capabilities like creating simple or HTML emails, with attachments or without, and supports STMP server build-in. To be able to use Nodemailers, you need a Node.js version 6.0 or later.

To start sending emails via Node.js using Nodemailer, you need to install the package. Follow the steps next to do it.

Step 1. Create a Node.js application:

mkdir email-nodeapp && cd email-nodeapp
npm init -y

Step 2. Install Nodemailer:

npm install nodemailer - -save

or

yarn add nodemailer

Step 3. Create Nodemailer transporter.

In this step, you can set up the SMTP server, which is the preferred transport method. To do this, create an email.js file with the following:

const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
let transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
host: “<SMTP host sddress>”,
port: 2525,
auth: {
user: "<user>",
pass: "<pass>"
}
})

Note: replace the values for host, user and pass with the accurate ones.

Step 4. Send an email with the sendMail method by adding the following to email.js:

message = {
from: "[email protected]",
to: "[email protected]",
subject: "Subject",
text: "Hello SMTP Email"
}
transporter.sendMail(message, **function**(err, info) {
if (err) {
console.log(err)
} else {
console.log(info);
}

Note: replace the values for subject and text with the accurate email subject and body.

Here it is — you have just sent your email using Nodemailer for Node.js.

Sending HTML emails

With Nodemailer, you can also send emails with HTML easily. To send an HTML email using Node.js, add the following to the message:

message = {
from: "[email protected]",
to: "[email protected]",
subject: "Subject",
html: "<h1>Hello SMTP Email</h1>"
}

If you want to test whether it works, run node email.js in your terminal.

You can also use the package of email-templates to send HTML emails with Nodemail.

Sending emails with attachments

Besides creating responsive and dynamic emails with HTML, Nodemailer also allows sending emails through Node.js that contain attachments.

To add attachments to your email, you can use the following properties after the email’s subject and body:

• filename, for the attached file (including Unicode), and content, for the body of your attachment:

attachments: [
{
filename: 'text.txt',
content: 'Hello there!'
}
]

• path, to link the file through the path to it:

attachments: [
{
path: '/home/user/desktop/text.txt
}
]

• path, to add an attachment available via a URL:

attachments: [
{
path: 'https://raw.github.com/nodemailer/nodemailer/master/LICENSE'
}
]

And that’s it — you can now send your emails via Node JS with attachments of different types.

Summary

You can send emails through Node.js in different ways, namely via using an SMPT, email APIs, or the Nodemailer module. While there are benefits and disadvantages to each, choose the method that fits your project best.