How to Use Gmail to Send Emails

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Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.2 (the current stable version).

During development, instead of using a regular SMTP server to send emails, you might find using Gmail easier and more practical. The SwiftmailerBundle makes it really easy.

In the development configuration file, change the transport setting to gmail and set the username and password to the Google credentials:

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        # app/config/config_dev.yml
swiftmailer:
    transport: gmail
    username:  your_gmail_username
    password:  your_gmail_password
    

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        <!-- app/config/config_dev.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:swiftmailer="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/swiftmailer"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/swiftmailer
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/swiftmailer/swiftmailer-1.0.xsd">

    <!-- ... -->
    <swiftmailer:config
        transport="gmail"
        username="your_gmail_username"
        password="your_gmail_password"
    />
</container>
    

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        // app/config/config_dev.php
$container->loadFromExtension('swiftmailer', array(
    'transport' => 'gmail',
    'username'  => 'your_gmail_username',
    'password'  => 'your_gmail_password',
));
    

Tip

It's more convenient to configure these options in the parameters.yml file:

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        # app/config/parameters.yml
parameters:
    # ...
    mailer_user:     your_gmail_username
    mailer_password: your_gmail_password
    

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        # app/config/config_dev.yml
swiftmailer:
    transport: gmail
    username:  '%mailer_user%'
    password:  '%mailer_password%'
    

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        <!-- app/config/config_dev.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:swiftmailer="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/swiftmailer"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/swiftmailer
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/swiftmailer/swiftmailer-1.0.xsd">

    <!-- ... -->
    <swiftmailer:config
        transport="gmail"
        username="%mailer_user%"
        password="%mailer_password%"
    />
</container>
    

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        // app/config/config_dev.php
$container->loadFromExtension('swiftmailer', array(
    'transport' => 'gmail',
    'username'  => '%mailer_user%',
    'password'  => '%mailer_password%',
));
    

Redefining the Default Configuration Parameters

The gmail transport is simply a shortcut that uses the smtp transport and sets these options:

Option	Value
`encryption`	`ssl`
`auth_mode`	`login`
`host`	`smtp.gmail.com`

If your application uses tls encryption or oauth authentication, you must override the default options by defining the encryption and auth_mode parameters.

If your Gmail account uses 2-Step-Verification, you must generate an App password and use it as the value of the mailer_password parameter. You must also ensure that you allow less secure apps to access your Gmail account.