Send HTML UTF-8 Email In PHP (A Simple Example)

Welcome to a quick tutorial on how to send an HTML UTF-8 email in PHP. So you want to send out an HTML email in PHP? In a language that is not English? Yes, it is possible.

To send an HTML UTF8 email in PHP, we have to set the appropriate HTML and UTF-8 email headers. For example:

$to = "jon@doe.com";
$subject = "SUBJECT";
$body = "<html><body>This is an HTML mail.</body></html>";
$head = implode("\r\n", ["MIME-Version: 1.0", "Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8"]);
mail($to, $subject, $body, $head);

That should answer the mystery, but let us walk through an actual example in this guide – Read on!

TLDR – QUICK SLIDES

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PHP UTF-8 EMAIL

All right, let us now get into an example of sending the PHP UTF-8 email.

SENDING UTF-8 HTML EMAIL

utf-mail.php

<?php
// (A) UTF-8 MAIL FUNCTION
function umail ($subject, $body, $to, $cc=null, $bcc=null) {
  // (A1) MAIL TO
  if (is_array($to)) { $to = implode(", ", $to); }

  // (A2) MAIL HEADERS
  $head = [
    "MIME-Version: 1.0",
    "Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8"
  ];

  // (A3) CC & BCC
  if ($cc !== null) { $head[] = "Cc: " . implode(", ", $cc); }
  if ($bcc !== null) { $head[] = "Bcc: " . implode(", ", $bcc); }

  // (A4) SEND MAIL
  return mail($to, $subject, $body, implode("\r\n", $head));
}

// (B) SEND TEST MAIL
echo umail (
  "Test Email",
  "This is <strong>強い</strong>.",
  "job@doe.com",
  ["joe@doe.com", "jon@doe.com"],
  ["jon@doe.com", "joy@doe.com"]
) ? "OK" : "ERROR";

Yep, this is pretty much just a fancy version of the introduction snippet. Packaged into the umail() function so you can use it in your own project. This should be pretty self-explanatory, there are 5 parameters to feed into umail().

$subject The subject.
$body The message itself.
$to – The recipient. Use a string for a single recipient, and an array for multiple recipients.
$cc $bcc The CC and BCC. Same as $to, omit or use null if none.

HOW ABOUT CSS?

Yes, it is possible to append style="COSMETICS" directly to the HTML tags. But take note that <style> tags will probably not work… Depending on the email client.

DOWNLOAD & NOTES

Here is the download link to the example code, so you don’t have to copy-paste everything.

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EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here for the source code on GitHub gist, just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

EXTRA BITS & LINKS

That’s it for all the code examples, and here are some extras that may be useful to you.

LINKS & REFERENCES

PHP Mail Reference Manual
PHP Mail is not sending out? Here’s how to fix it – Code Boxx
How to send out emails in bulk – Code Boxx

INFOGRAPHIC CHEAT SHEET

How to Send UTF-8 Email With PHP (Click to Enlarge)

THE END

Thank you for reading, and we have come to the end of this tutorial. I hope that it has helped you to better understand mail in PHP, and if you have anything to share, please feel free to comment below. Good luck and happy coding!