![]() Although there have been some minor updates to the repository since then, there’s little sign of new upcoming features. The last release (0.6.4) was made available back in February 2016. Yes, MailCatcher also has various limitations and drawbacks. This is all great, but are there any disadvantages to using this tool? MailCatcher cons The developer of this tool can be supported with donations, but other than that, all of the features listed above are free of charge. You can also try out the links, preview the attachments, and diagnose what needs to be improved before an email is sent.įinally, MailCatcher is free to use, which might be appealing to those of you on a very low budget. You can access the HTML version of an email and check if the headers, including Return-Path address, are set correctly. MailCatcher can help you perform a basic inspection of the content and headers of your emails. You can also be notified when a flood of emails is released after a simple action by a user and fix it before pushing it to production. In other words, you can see if a message that was supposed to be triggered was really sent. With this tool, you can also easily see what really works and what doesn’t. Since all the workflows you’re testing will be redirected to a local address, no message will ever be delivered to an actual SMTP server and then pushed to users’ inboxes (assuming you configured everything correctly). You can do this with: mailcatcher -foreground -ip=0.0.0.0 Why use MailCatcher?ĭespite its basic functionalities, MailCatcher can effectively prevent you from spamming real users of your app. no-quit Don't allow quitting the processĪ particularly useful option is to launch MailCatcher in the foreground, so others can connect to your local SMTP. http-path PATH Add a prefix to all HTTP paths ![]() http-port PORT Set the port address of the http server http-ip IP Set the ip address of the http server smtp-port PORT Set the port of the smtp server smtp-ip IP Set the ip address of the smtp server ip IP Set the ip address of both servers When in doubt, also check the list of available commands by typing: mailcatcher -help Now, you can set the workflows you were planning to test to be sent through smtp://:1025 and access them at For the list of framework-specific instructions for installing MailCatcher, check the list on their homepage. Make sure this container is linked to your app container, and use the following SMTP settings: STMP: Speaking of a docker, instead of installing a gem as in the example above, you can use a dedicated docker image.įirst of all, add it to your docker-compose.yml file. *** MailCatcher runs as a daemon by default. Once you start MailCatcher, you should see the following: mailcatcher -ip 0.0.0.0 But if you wish to use a docker for installation or simply want to share your MailCatcher view with other machines, add “0.0.0.0” at the end. NOTE: Skipping the zeros is fine for most cases. Whichever approach you choose, MailCatcher should be installed once you complete all the steps.Īfter that, feel free to start it with: mailcatcher -ip 0.0.0.0 Then, specify the dependencies in a Gemfile: When you’re done, install MailCatcher with the following: gem install mailcatcherįirst, install Bundler: $ gem install bundler For each, solely the “Installing Ruby” part will be sufficient to set up the environment for installing MailCatcher. Many other versions of Ubuntu and Mac OS are also covered under the links above. Here’s how you can do this for the following OSs: ![]() MailCatcher runs on Ruby, so you’ll need to have a development environment set up. MailCatcher works with any framework that supports SMTP and localhost, so the list of available options is very long. You can look into its body, headers, attachments, and HTML code. If the latter is the case, you probably have some work to do here.Įach message that is received by MailCatcher can be opened and analyzed. Emails sent this way arrive at a local server only and can be viewed in a web interface. It works as a fake SMTP server to which you redirect your messages instead of sending them to a real SMTP server. MailCatcher is a free tool that can intercept emails sent from any web or mobile app. Even when you figure that out, how do you ensure the right emails are sent to the right recipients? How do you make them look beautiful on all screen sizes? How do you avoid random spam waves triggered accidentally when using production data in a pre-production environment? Some of these questions can be, to some extent, answered with a tool called MailCatcher. The framework you use might not necessarily be built with emails in mind (think, ReactJS, for example). Setting up email workflows for your app might be difficult. ![]()
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