Question

How can I test sending email from my application without flooding my inbox?

Is there a way to tell IIS/ASP.NET how to deliver email to a local folder for inspection?

Answer 1

Yes there is a way.

You can alter web.config like this so that when you send email it will instead be created as an .EML file in c:\LocalDir.

    <configuration>        <system.net>           <mailSettings>              <smtp deliveryMethod='SpecifiedPickupDirectory'>                 <specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation='c:\LocalDir'/>              </smtp>           </mailSettings>        </system.net>     </configuration> 

You can also create an instance of the SmtpClient class with these same settings, if you don’t want to/can’t change the web.config. In C# that looks something like this:

var smtpClient = new SmtpClient(); smtpClient.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.SpecifiedPickupDirectory; var emailPickupDirectory = HostingEnvironment.MapPath('~/EmailPickup'); if (!Directory.Exists(emailPickupDirectory)) {      Directory.CreateDirectory(emailPickupDirectory) } smtpClient.PickupDirectoryLocation = emailPickupDirectory;