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Sending Web eMail in ASP.NET

Peter Todorov
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One of the most common functionalities used in Web development is sending email from a Web page. Before you ask, I’ll give you a couple of reasons why you might want to send email from your Web application:

  • create a "give us your feedback" Web page

  • implement a "forgotten password" script that sends a password to the user’s email account

  • send an automatic welcome email to your new newsletter subscriber

  • send automatic email update notifications

  • send automatic email notifications whenever an error occurs in your Web application

    Of course there are many more situations where it’s appropriate to send email from your Web applications, and it’s up to you to determine exactly how and where you’re going to implement this functionality.

    Enter: .NET

    The .NET framework makes the task of sending email from a Web page unbelievably easy and I’ll show you how to do it in a matter of minutes. This article presumes that you have a basic understanding of how .NET and ASP.NET works.

    1. Import the namespace, and create instances of required classes

    We are going to use the SmtpMail and MailMessage classes, which belong to the System.Web.Mail namespace. In order to use them, we will need to import the System.Web.Mail namespace like this:

    <%@ Import Namespace="System.Web.Mail" %>

    The MailMessage class provides properties and methods for constructing an email message. To build our email message we need to create an instance of this class:

    Dim objMail As New MailMessage()

    2. Set the properties of the object

    Next, we have to set all the properties of the objMail object:

    ' The email address of the sender 
    
objMail.From = "yourname@yourdomain.com" 
    
 
    
' The email address of the recipient 
    
objMail.To = "recipientname@somedomain.com" 
    
 
    
' The email address of the Cc recipient 
    
objMail.Cc = "name1@anotherdomain.com" 
    
 
    
' The email address of the Bcc recipient 
    
objMail.Bcc = "name2@anotherdomain.com" 
    
 
    
' The format of the message - it can be MailFormat.Text 
    
or MailFormat.Html 
    
objMail.BodyFormat = MailFormat.Text 
    
 
    
' The priority of the message  - it can be MailPriority.High, 
    
MailPriority,Normal or MailPriority.Low 
    
objMail.Priority = MailPriority.High 
    
 
    
'The subject of the message 
    
objMail.Subject = "My first ASP.NET email" 
    
 
    
'The message text 
    
objMail.Body = "This is my first email sent via 
    
ASP.NET. It was easier than I thought :)"

    After all the properties (some of them are optional) of our new email message are set properly, the only thing that’s left to do is send the message.

    3. Send the Message

    If you have experience sending email from classic ASP script with CDONTS you might think that the MailMessage class has method Send or something similar. Well, the way ASP.NET sends email messages is a little different from ASP.

    We need to use the static method Send of the SmtpMail class, passing in our objMail instance. You might be asking "what’s a ‘static method’?" A static method is one that’s not associated with an instance of a type. An example of an instance of a type is our objMail object. It is illegal to reference a static member of a class through an instance. The proper way to do it is:

    SmtpMail.Send(objMail)

    If you want to specify an SMTP server that’s different than the default, you’ll need to set the SmtpServer property of the SmtpMail class:

    SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "smtp.your-server.com"
    Summary

    In summary, to send an email from your ASP.NET page, you need to:

  • import the System.Web.Mail namespace in your ASP.NET page

  • create an instance of the MailMessage class

  • set all the properties of the MailMessage instance

  • send the message with SmtpMail.Send method

    And finally, to get you started, here’s the complete, functional code for an ASP.NET page that sends the user’s feedback via email to the Webmaster:

    <%@ Page Language="VB" EnableSessionState="False"  
    
EnableViewState="False" Trace="False" Debug="False"%> 
    
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Web.Mail" %>  
    
<script language="VB" runat=server>  
    
 
    
Sub Page_Load(Sender as Object, E as EventArgs)  
    
    If Page.IsPostBack Then 
    
        lblResponse.Text = "Your email has been sent." 
    
    End If 
    
End Sub  
    
     
    
Sub btn_Click(sender as Object, e as System.EventArgs) 
    
  If  Request.Form("Email") <> "" Then 
    
    Dim objMail As New MailMessage() 
    
    objMail.From = "your_name@yourdomain.com" 
    
    objMail.To = Request.Form("Email") 
    
    objMail.Subject = Request.Form("Subject") 
    
    objMail.Body = Request.Form("Message") 
    
    objMail.BodyFormat = MailFormat.Text 
    
    SmtpMail.SmtpServer = " smtp.your-server.com" 
    
    SmtpMail.Send(objMail) 
    
  Else 
    
    lblResponse.Text = "Please enter an email address." 
    
  End If 
    
End Sub 
    
 
    
</script>  
    
<html> 
    
<head> 
    
<style> 
    
.main {font-family:Verdana; font-size:12px;} 
    
.title {font-family:Verdana; font-size:18px; font-weight:bold;} 
    
</style> 
    
</head> 
    
<body> 
    
<span class="title" align="center">Send email from  
    
an ASP.NET page</span> 
    
 
    
<br><br><asp:Label class="main" id="lblResponse"  
    
runat="server"/> 
    
 
    
<form method="POST" name="MainForm" runat="server"> 
    
<table> 
    
  <tr> 
    
    <td class="main" align="right">Email:</td> 
    
    <td class="main"><input type="text"  
    
    class="main" name="Email" value=""></td> 
    
  </tr> 
    
  <tr> 
    
    <td class="main" align="right"> 
    
    Subject:</td> 
    
    <td class="main"><input type="text"  
    
    class="main" name="Subject" value=""></td> 
    
  </tr> 
    
  <tr> 
    
    <td class="main" align="right"  
    
    valign="top">Message:</td> 
    
    <td class="main"><textarea name="Message"  
    
    cols="50" rows="8"></textarea></td> 
    
  </tr> 
    
 
    
 
    
  <tr> 
    
    <td class="main">&nbsp;</td> 
    
    <td class="main"><input type="Submit"  
    
    id="btnSubmit" OnServerClick="btn_Click" value="Send"  
    
    runat="server" /></td> 
    
  </tr> 
    
</table> 
    
</form> 
    
</body> 
    
</html>