Send mail from localhost to Gmail

Question

how do i make gmail accept the phpmailer from localhost and not prevent signing in?

how do i fix this error message

Message could not be sent.Mailer Error: SMTP connect() failed.

<?php
require 'PHPMailer-master\PHPMailerAutoload.php';

$mail = new PHPMailer;

//$mail->SMTPDebug = 3;                               // Enable verbose debug output
$mail->isSMTP();                                      // Set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';  // Specify main and backup SMTP servers
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;                               // Enable SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = 'my@gmail.com';                 // SMTP username
$mail->Password = 'valid';                           // SMTP password
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';                            // Enable TLS encryption, `ssl` also accepted
$mail->Port = 587;                                    // TCP port to connect to

$mail->setFrom('my@gmail.com', 'me');
 // Add a recipient
  $mail->addAddress('their@gmail.com');               // Name is optional
  $mail->addReplyTo('my@gmail.com', 'Information');
$mail->addCC('cc@example.com');
$mail->addBCC('bcc@example.com');


 $mail->isHTML(true);                                  // Set email format to HTML

 $mail->Subject = 'Here is the subject';
 $mail->Body    = 'This is the HTML message body <b>in bold!</b>';
 $mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients';

  if(!$mail->send()) {
   echo 'Message could not be sent.';
   echo 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
  } else {
   echo 'Message has been sent';
   }

   ?>

Answer 1

It seems a connection to Google SMTP on port 587 is not being made. Are you in a network where port 587 is blocked. You can simply check if a connection can be made by using this telnet command:

telnet smtp.gmail.com 587

You will get a response as shown in snapshot

The Telnet client in Windows is disabled by default, and needs to be enabled via Windows' Programs and Features:

Control Panel --> Programs --> Turn Windows features on or off, in the dialog that pops up check-mark "Telnet Client".

Or you can download Putty