Question

I am trying to send text messages to my phone from my server using php. I recently configured the server to send email, which it does (verified). It, however, goes into my spam box. When I try to send a message via sms I do not receive anything.

This is the script I am using:

$to = "[e-mail]";
$subject = "testing";
$body = "";
$headers = 'From: [e-mail]';

if (mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers)) {
    echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>"); 
} else {
    echo("<p>Message delivery failed...</p>");
}

The address that I am using for sms is [e-mail] in the ‘To’ field.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say this is a authentication issue, maybe.

Is there anything I need to configure further? (i.e. php.ini)

Answer 1

Most email providers/servers today rely heavily on spam filtering / dnsbl. Your webserver is not a know mail server, and you probably did not set up SPF or anything.

An approach to avoid all those issues would be to utilize a Google Mail address (or any other providers). And instead of the PHP mail function use something more complex like Swiftmailer, which generates Mail headers that are less commonly autoclassified as spam.

See also: Using php's swiftmailer with gmail