I am using SmtpClient to send an email with an attachment.
However for a certain batch we need to somehow save the MailMessage instead of sending them.
We are then thinking/hoping to manually upload the messages to the users drafts folder.
Is it possible to save these messages with the attachment intact (impossible, I would have thought). Or alternatively upload the messages to a folder in the users account?
If anyone has any experience of this, I'd much appreciate a bit of help or a pointer.
When testing in ASP.NET we save our emails to a folder rather then send them through an email server. Maybe you could change yourweb.config
settings like this for your batch?
<system.net>
<mailSettings>
<smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
<specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="c:\Temp\mail\"/>
</smtp>
</mailSettings>
</system.net>
Additional Info:
- MSDN: <specifiedPickupDirectory> Element (Network Settings)
- Configuring SmtpClient to drop emails in a folder on disk
As well as the SpecifiedPickupDirectory
information of the other answers, if you want to ensure your emails are sent to a folder relative to the site root - handy in testing on build servers where you don't know the paths - you can add a quick check in your email sending code:
SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient();
...
// Add "~" support for pickupdirectories.
if (client.DeliveryMethod == SmtpDeliveryMethod.SpecifiedPickupDirectory && client.PickupDirectoryLocation.StartsWith("~"))
{
string root = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
string pickupRoot = client.PickupDirectoryLocation.Replace("~/", root);
pickupRoot = pickupRoot.Replace("/",@"\");
client.PickupDirectoryLocation = pickupRoot;
}
And your tests will look something like this (make sure you use App_Data so IIS can write to the folder):
// Arrange - get SitePath from AppDomain.Current.BaseDirectory + ..\
string pickupPath = Path.Combine(SitePath, "App_Data", "TempSmtp");
if (!Directory.Exists(pickupPath))
Directory.CreateDirectory(pickupPath);
foreach (string file in Directory.GetFiles(pickupPath, "*.eml"))
{
File.Delete(file);
}
// Act (send some emails)
// Assert
Assert.That(Directory.GetFiles(pickupPath, "*.eml").Count(), Is.EqualTo(1));
This can help - Adding Save() functionality to Microsoft.Net.Mail.MailMessage
The main ideia, make an extension to MailMessage ,that by reflection making a save method.
You can configure this with the system.net
setting in your web.config
/ app.config
file.
<system.net>
<mailSettings>
<smtp deliveryMethod="Network">
<network host="mail.mydomain.com" port="25" />
</smtp>
<!-- Use this setting for development
<smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
<specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="C:\Temp" />
</smtp>
-->
</mailSettings>
</system.net>
Also, here's a link with info on migrating from System.Web.Mail
to System.Net.Mail
.
A bug also requires adding as a workaround in some versions of the framework. So the completed version looks like:
<system.net>
<mailSettings>
<smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
<specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="c:\Temp\mail\"/>
<network host="localhost" />
</smtp>
</mailSettings>
</system.net>