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📬 Secure Mailer

A lightweight, security-first SMTP email sender built with PHP + PHPMailer. No bloat, no framework overhead — raw PDO, session-based auth, AES-256 encrypted SMTP credentials, and a clean dark-mode UI.

✨ Features

Feature Detail
🔐 Secure Authentication Session-based login with password_hash / password_verify (bcrypt)
🔒 SMTP Password Encryption AES-256-CBC encryption via OpenSSL before storing in DB
📝 Template Manager Create, edit, delete reusable email templates
🌐 Template Types Plain Text and HTML modes with a live preview editor
🔖 Dynamic Placeholders {{name}}, {{date}}, {{custom}} — resolved at send time
📨 Bulk Send Send to up to 5 recipients per request via comma-separated list
🛡️ CSRF Protection Every form protected with a cryptographically random token
🚦 Rate Limiting Session-based rate limiter to prevent request flooding
📋 Email Logs Per-user send history with status (success / failed) on the dashboard
🔍 SMTP Debugger Built-in diagnostic tool for troubleshooting SMTP connectivity
🌑 Dark UI Premium dark-mode interface using Bootstrap 5 + Inter font

🏗️ Project Structure

mailSender/
│
├── index.php                  # 🏠 Main dashboard (stats + recent logs)
├── composer.json              # PHP dependency manifest (PHPMailer 6.9)
├── database.sql               # Database schema & default admin seeder
├── smtp-debug.php             # 🔍 SMTP diagnostic tool (delete after use!)
│
├── auth/
│   ├── login.php              # Login controller + UI
│   ├── signup.php             # Registration controller + UI
│   └── logout.php             # Session destroy + redirect
│
├── config/
│   ├── db.php                 # PDO connection (utf8mb4, strict mode)
│   ├── functions.php          # Helpers: hb(), CSRF, rate_limit, redirect, is_logged_in
│   └── encryption.php         # AES-256-CBC encrypt/decrypt for SMTP passwords
│
├── smtp/
│   └── settings.php           # SMTP config form (save / update) with quick-fill presets
│
├── templates/
│   ├── index.php              # Template list (cards with edit/delete)
│   ├── add.php                # Create template — Plain Text or HTML editor
│   └── edit.php               # Edit existing template
│
├── send-mail/
│   ├── index.php              # Compose & send UI (template picker, recipient list)
│   └── process.php            # ⚙️  Email sending engine (PHPMailer, logs, JSON response)
│
├── assets/
│   ├── css/
│   │   └── style.css          # Global dark-mode design system
│   └── js/
│
└── vendor/                    # Composer-managed packages (PHPMailer)

🗄️ Database Schema

Database name: mail_sender_db — UTF-8mb4 Unicode collation.

users

Column Type Notes
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PK
username VARCHAR(100) UNIQUE
password_hash VARCHAR(255) bcrypt via password_hash()
created_at TIMESTAMP auto

smtp_settings

Column Type Notes
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PK
user_id INT FK → users CASCADE DELETE
smtp_host VARCHAR(255) e.g. smtp.gmail.com
smtp_user VARCHAR(255) sender email address
smtp_pass TEXT AES-256-CBC encrypted
smtp_port INT 587 / 465 / 25
encryption ENUM(tls,ssl,none) default tls
created_at TIMESTAMP auto

templates

Column Type Notes
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PK
user_id INT FK → users CASCADE DELETE
template_name VARCHAR(100) Display name
language VARCHAR(20) English, Hindi, etc.
template_type ENUM(plain,html) default plain
subject VARCHAR(255) Supports placeholders
body TEXT Raw plain text or raw HTML
created_at TIMESTAMP auto

email_logs

Column Type Notes
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PK
user_id INT FK → users CASCADE DELETE
recipient VARCHAR(255)
subject VARCHAR(255) Placeholder-resolved subject
status ENUM(success,failed)
error_message TEXT Populated on failure
sent_at TIMESTAMP auto

⚙️ Installation & Setup

Requirements

  • PHP ≥ 7.4 (8.x recommended)
  • MySQL / MariaDB 5.7+
  • Composer
  • XAMPP (or any Apache/Nginx + PHP stack)
  • PHP extensions: openssl, pdo_mysql, mbstring

Step 1 — Clone / Copy the Project

Place the project inside your web root:

C:\xampp\htdocs\www\all-in-one\mailSender\

Or, if using Apache directly:

C:\xampp\htdocs\mailSender\

Step 2 — Install PHP Dependencies

Open a terminal inside the project root and run:

composer install

This will install PHPMailer 6.9 into the vendor/ directory.

Step 3 — Create the Database

  1. Start MySQL from the XAMPP Control Panel.
  2. Open phpMyAdmin: http://localhost/phpmyadmin
  3. Click Import → select database.sql → click Go.

This will:

  • Create the mail_sender_db database
  • Create all 4 tables (users, smtp_settings, templates, email_logs)
  • Insert a default admin account

Default credentials:

Username: admin
Password: admin123

⚠️ Change the default password immediately after first login.

Step 4 — Configure Database Connection

Open config/db.php and update if your MySQL credentials differ:

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
define('DB_USER', 'root');   // ← your MySQL username
define('DB_PASS', '');        // ← your MySQL password
define('DB_NAME', 'mail_sender_db');

Step 5 — Configure Encryption Key

Open config/encryption.php and change the secret key to something unique and strong:

private $secretKey = "A_VERY_SECRET_KEY_CHANGEME_123456";
//                    ↑ Replace this with a random 32+ character string

⚠️ Critical: If you change this key after SMTP passwords have been saved, they will no longer decrypt correctly. Set this once before any SMTP configuration.

Step 6 — Access the App

Start Apache and MySQL from XAMPP Control Panel, then open:

http://localhost/all-in-one/mailSender/

🚀 Usage Guide

1. Login

Navigate to the app URL. You will be redirected to auth/login.php. Use your credentials.

2. Configure SMTP (smtp/settings.php)

Before sending any emails, configure your SMTP credentials:

Provider Host Port Encryption
Gmail smtp.gmail.com 587 TLS
Outlook / Office 365 smtp.office365.com 587 TLS
Yahoo smtp.mail.yahoo.com 587 TLS
Zoho smtp.zoho.com 587 TLS
SSL (any) your host 465 SSL

Gmail users: You must use an App Password, not your regular Gmail password. Generate one at: Google Account → Security → App Passwords

Quick-fill buttons for all major providers are available on the settings page.

3. Create Templates (templates/add.php)

Templates support two modes:

Plain Text Mode

  • Write your message in the textarea
  • Line breaks are preserved and automatically converted to <br> in the email

HTML Mode

  • Write raw HTML in the code editor
  • Switch to Live Preview tab to see a real-time render inside an <iframe>
  • Full HTML is sent as-is, wrapped in a clean UTF-8 email envelope

Supported Placeholders

Use these in the Subject or Body of any template:

Placeholder Replaced With
{{name}} Recipient's name (entered at send time)
{{date}} Date value (entered at send time)
{{custom}} Custom value (entered at send time)

Spaces inside braces are also supported: {{ name }} works identically to {{name}}.

Click the Quick Insert chips in the editor to insert placeholders at cursor position.

4. Send Emails (send-mail/index.php)

  1. Select a Template (optional) — pre-fills Subject and Body. The template type (Plain/HTML) is automatically set.
  2. Enter Recipients — comma-separated email addresses. Maximum 5 per request.
  3. Fill Placeholder Values — Name, Date, Custom fields (used to resolve {{name}} etc.)
  4. Click 🚀 Launch Campaign

Results appear in a real-time terminal-style output box showing per-recipient success/failure status.

5. Dashboard (index.php)

The dashboard shows:

  • Saved Templates count
  • Emails Sent (successful) count
  • Quick navigation to Send Mail and SMTP Settings
  • Recent Email Logs — last 5 sends with recipient, subject, status, and timestamp

🔧 SMTP Debugger

If emails are not sending, use the built-in diagnostic tool:

http://localhost/all-in-one/mailSender/smtp-debug.php

It performs three checks:

  1. TCP Socket Test — verifies your server can reach the SMTP host on the configured port
  2. PHPMailer Full Auth Test — attempts a real SMTP handshake with verbose debug output
  3. PHP Configuration Check — verifies openssl, allow_url_fopen, and mail() availability

⚠️ Delete smtp-debug.php after debugging. It exposes your decrypted SMTP credentials in the browser.

🔒 Security Overview

Concern Implementation
SQL Injection PDO prepared statements throughout — zero raw queries
XSS All output escaped via hb() function (htmlspecialchars)
CSRF Random 64-char hex token generated per session, validated on every POST
Password Storage bcrypt via PHP password_hash() / password_verify()
SMTP Password AES-256-CBC encrypted before writing to DB
Auth Guard require_login() on every protected page
Rate Limiting Session-based rate_limit() (enabled in production)
SSL Peer Verify Disabled for local/dev SMTP compatibility (verify_peer = false) — enable in production

🧩 Key Components

config/functions.php

Function Purpose
hb($data) XSS-safe HTML output — wraps htmlspecialchars
generate_csrf_token() Creates/returns a 64-char hex CSRF token in session
validate_csrf_token($token) Validates POST token against session — dies on mismatch
rate_limit($seconds) Blocks requests within N seconds of the last one
redirect($url) header() redirect + exit
is_logged_in() Checks $_SESSION['user_id']
require_login() Redirects to login if not authenticated

config/encryption.php — MailSenderEncryption

Method Purpose
encrypt($data) AES-256-CBC encrypt → base64 encode (IV prepended)
decrypt($data) base64 decode → extract IV → AES-256-CBC decrypt

send-mail/process.php

Function Purpose
replace_placeholders() Resolves {{name}}, {{date}}, {{custom}} in subject + body
format_body_for_email() Detects if body is HTML or plain text; applies nl2br to plain

The engine loops over each recipient individually, creating a fresh PHPMailer instance per email. Results and logs are accumulated and returned as a JSON response.

🌐 Supported SMTP Providers

Provider Host TLS Port SSL Port
Gmail smtp.gmail.com 587 465
Outlook / Microsoft 365 smtp.office365.com 587 —
Yahoo smtp.mail.yahoo.com 587 465
Zoho Mail smtp.zoho.com 587 465
Custom / Self-hosted your domain varies varies

🐛 Troubleshooting

Symptom Likely Cause Fix
Database connection failed Wrong DB credentials Update config/db.php
SMTP settings not configured No SMTP row in DB Go to SMTP Settings and save
Connection/Server Error Port blocked by firewall Use SMTP debugger; try port 465 with SSL
Gmail auth failure Using regular password Generate an App Password
Emails not received Spam/junk filtering Check recipient spam folder; verify SPF/DKIM
Decryption returns garbage Encryption key changed after saving Re-save SMTP settings with new key
CSRF error on POST Session expired Refresh the page and resubmit

📦 Dependencies

Package Version Purpose
phpmailer/phpmailer ^6.9 SMTP email sending library

Frontend (CDN, no install needed):

Library Version Purpose
Bootstrap 5.3.0 UI framework
Bootstrap Icons 1.10.5 Icon set
Google Fonts — Inter latest Typography
Google Fonts — Noto Sans Devanagari latest Hindi/Devanagari script support

📄 License

MIT — free to use, modify, and distribute.

Built by Aman — part of the all-in-one toolset.

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A lightweight, security-first SMTP email sender built with PHP + PHPMailer.

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