Frequently the applications that we develop will need to send out an email (e.g. for account registration, order confirmation or newsletter). How does a developer tests that the emails are formatted and mail merged correctly? The options you have are:

  • Local or other SMTP server (not applicable for Windows 7 as there is no local SMTP server option anymore)
  • Local Directory Delivery
  • Smtp4Dev (recommended)

Local or other SMTP Server

Edit your web.config/app.config to use your local or remote SMTP server. For Windows 7 users, you no longer have the option to install an SMTP server (a good thing), so I suggest either using another host or using Smtp4Dev (see below).

Make the following change to your web.config or SMTP Email Settings in IIS 7

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Local Directory Delivery

This option allows mail to be saved to a local directory that you can then open (or redeliver with another application). To configure this you can modify the web.config as follows:

Or set this up in SMTP Email Settings in IIS

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So when the application sends an email, it will be saved into the pickup directory. You can then double click to open the email in your email client.

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Smtp4Dev

Smtp4Dev is a good compromise between the two solutions. It installs a fake SMTP server on your local computer that listens for emails. It then presents a UI for all the emails you receive and you can double click to open the email.

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All you need to do is point your application you use localhost as the SMTP server (like the Local or other SMTP Server setup)

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