使用最少的第三方服务从PHP发送邮件？

Question

Dont ignore if this sounds like a duplicate. I went through similar questions here but couldnt resolve my doubts.

Im developing a site in my localhost. Its coded in PHP. I need to send mail to my site's customers from my PHP script. I know we can use gmail smtp server for this. But due to the limit on the mail/day set by google, i prefer not to use them.

But my doubts are:

1. Can i do it without gmail's smtp server or anyone else's smtp server?
2. What all components would i need to send mails from my localhost as well as from my online webserver?
3. Does all the webservers come pre-configured to enable us to send mail from site?
4. What is sendMail, phpMailer, pearMail etc.? I've been advised to use them. But what are they?

Thanks a lot!

EDIT: Im using wamp2.2 in my localhost.

Answer 1

If you use XAMPP, it comes with Mercury Mail. You can use that to send mails through localhost.

Answer 2

1. Of course
2. Setup an own MTA (Mail Transport Agent) like postfix.
3. In my experience the shared hosts usually already offers a mail agent. If you really mean "webserver", than no: A webserver is a webserver. Preconfigured packages like XAMPP usually also comes with a MTA.
4. Libraries to send mail. sendMail could be sendmail , which is itself a MTA-interface.

Answer 3

to send email from php , simply use php's own mail function :

 <?php

             $to = "destinationemailid";

             $subject = "mail subject";

             $message = "your message to send";

             $from =  "sourceemailid";

             $headers = "From:" . $from;

             mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);



        ?>

this works with xampp on localhost