Question

Is it possible to prepare an email (From, To, Subject, Body, Attachements) in PHP and, instead of directly sending it with PHP, open it with the client’s email program (Thunderbird / Outlook / …)?

My context is :

• in a form, the user select the “To” contact and a file to send (the body is a predefined text)
• on submit, I would like the prepared email to be displayed in his favorite mail client, so that he can modify it (add CC, modify body, …)

If possible, how to do that?

Answer 1

Thanks all for your answers.

Unfortunately (and actually quite unsurprisingly), it is not possible to put attachement data in a mailto link (duh)!

2 solutions then :

1. If you really need to open the client’s email software, then prepare a mailto with a direct link to the file in the message body. For that, you need to store the file in a place accessible by the recipient vie that direct link.
2. If you can’t store the file in a place accessible by the recipient (for instance your app is a intranet app behind a firewall), then the only solution is to send the email via PHP directly, without using the client’s software.
3. Or maybe you could send the mail to the sender first via PHP, and he would forward it to the recipient himself, so he could modify the message at will. But that’s a bit confusing for non-trained users…

Cheers!