Question

This is a relatively simple question that may just not have a solution.

Is it possible to set the message To: header and send the email in PHP? Note that message To: is different from the envelope To: header. The latter actually determines where the email is routed, and the former just determines what it shown in the recipient’s email program.

Background: I’m setting up a little disposable email service for myself, so I’m receiving emails with a PHP script, modifying a few headers, and re-sending it to my real email address. I’d like the original recipient email address (the disposable email address) to still show up on the message when I receive it in my real email box (for client-side filtering rules, etc.).

Is this possible? I’ve been able to modify every other type of header, but this one has me stuck.

Answer 1

Thanks for everyone’s help! I found an excellent solution, so I thought I’d share.

I ended up just extending CodeIgniter’s email class to set a To header (I’m heretofore going to start calling it a vanity header since it’s all looks and no substance) and sending via SMTP. If you want to see a simple example of what I did, extend the Email class with your own MY_Email.php file (see the section on Extending Native Libraries in the User Guide) and copy over the _build_headers() function from the Email class.

    /**
 * Build final headers
 *
 * @access  protected
 * @param   string
 * @return  string
 */
protected function _build_headers()
{
    $this->_set_header('X-Sender', $this->clean_email($this->_headers['From']));
    $this->_set_header('X-Mailer', $this->useragent);
    $this->_set_header('X-Priority', $this->_priorities[$this->priority - 1]);
    $this->_set_header('Message-ID', $this->_get_message_id());
    $this->_set_header('Mime-Version', '1.0');
}

Then add your own header on the line immediately below the Mime-Version line, like so:

    $this->_set_header('To', '[e-mail]');

Then just send a regular email to one of your own email addresses. You’ll notice that even though the email arrives at your address, it appears to be addressed to [e-mail].

Boom.

If you’d like to actually use the full MY_Email.php file I created to add a “Vanity To” option to your own CodeIgniter project, see this gist.