QueueEmail

QueueEmail is a CakePHP plugin that allows you to queue emails in your database instead of sending them directly out. This is helpful for sending large batches of emails via a CRON job.

Usage

Create the table

cake schema create QueueEmail.queue

Use the QueueEmail component

var $components = array('QueueEmail.QueueEmail');

Then send your emails as you normally would

$this->QueueEmail->to = '[email protected]';
$this->QueueEmail->from = '[email protected]';
$this->QueueEmail->subject = 'A queued Email';
$this->QueueEmail->send();

Instead of sending, the email will be stored in the database. You can do anything you would do on the built-in Email component with QueueEmail, such as sending via smtp, attaching files, etc.

When you're ready to send, use the shell provided. I recommend setting up a CRON job to execute the shell every 5 minutes.

/path/to/site/cake/console/cake -app "/path/to/site/app" queue_sender send

You can also send individual emails by passing the id directly after the send method:

/path/to/site/cake/console/cake -app "/path/to/site/app" queue_sender send 12

If you have emails you don't want to queue, simply change the $queue var to false.

$this->QueueEmail->queue = false; // this email won't be queued

This will send the email as the regular EmailComponent normally would.

Options

The shell supports several options, described below. You can pass them directly via the CLI, or by setting its value in the Configure class.

• batchSize Limit the number of queued emails sent at time. Default 50.
• maxTries Limit the number of send attempts. Default 5.
• deleteAfter Remove the record from the db after it sends successfully. Default true.

Setting using the shell:

/path/to/site/cake/console/cake -app "/path/to/site/app" queue_sender send -batchSize 100

Setting using Configure:

Configure::write('QueueEmail.batchSize', 100);

Managing

The QueueEmail plugin also comes with some limited views that allow you to see what emails are currently queued. Visit /queue_email/queues/index

Annoyances

Much of the information is stored as serialized array strings and I'm not fond of that. If you have suggestions to avoid this let me know.

Future

• Add ability to send one or multiple emails from the management console.

License

Licensed under The MIT License http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php Redistributions of files must retain the above copyright notice.