Question

I’m currently working on an MVC prototype where I want to compile and send an email from the form to a directory as an eml file vs using a physical SMTP server. While this is not critical the issue has now sparked my curiosity as to “why it’s not working”

Within my web.config file I have the following settings

<system.net>

<mailSettings>
  <smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
    <network host="ignored"/>
    <specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="c:\email" />
  </smtp>
</mailSettings>

However within my web app whenever I invoke my sendmail method I am receiving an exception that the smtp host was not found. What I was expecting was that the smtpClient would generate the eml file localy. Or am I totally missing the point of SpecifiedPickupDirectory and I have to invoke a trip to a smtp server?

thanks in advance

Answer 1

The following works just great for me (I have no SMTP server installed locally):

1. Create a new ASP.NET MVC 2 project using the default template

2. In web.config put:

   <system.net>
       <mailSettings>
           <smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
               <network host="ignored"/>
               <specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="c:\email" />
           </smtp>
       </mailSettings>
   </system.net>
   

3. In the Index action of HomeController put:

   public ActionResult Index()
   {
       // If you are using .NET 3.5 or earlier the 
       // SmtpClient class doesn't implement IDisposable
       // so you might need to remove the "using" statement
       using (var client = new SmtpClient())
       {
           var mailMessage = new MailMessage("[e-mail]", "[e-mail]");
           mailMessage.Body = "Hello World";
           client.Send(mailMessage);
       }
       return View();
   }
   

4. Run the application

5. The eml file is generated at c:\email