Send File Attachment from Form Using phpMailer and PHP

Php File Upload Phpmailer Email Attachments

Php Problem Overview

I have a form on example.com/contact-us.php that looks like this (simplified):

<form method="post" action="process.php" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <input type="file" name="uploaded_file" id="uploaded_file" />
  <input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="10000000" />
</form>

In my process.php file, I have the following code utilizing PHPMailer() to send an email:

require("phpmailer.php");

$mail = new PHPMailer();

$mail->From     = [email protected];
$mail->FromName = My name;
$mail->AddAddress([email protected],"John Doe");

$mail->WordWrap = 50;
$mail->IsHTML(true);

$mail->Subject  =  "Contact Form Submitted";
$mail->Body     =  "This is the body of the message.";

The email sends the body correctly, but without the Attachment of uploaded_file.

MY QUESTION

I need the file uploaded_file from the form to be attached to the email, and sent. I do NOT care about saving the file after the process.php script sends it in an email.

I understand that I need to add AddAttachment(); somewhere (I'm assuming under the Body line) for the attachment to be sent. But...

What do I put at the top of the process.php file to pull in the file uploaded_file? Like something using $_FILES['uploaded_file'] to pull in the file from the contact-us.php page?
What goes inside of AddAttachment(); for the file to be attached and sent along with the email and where does this code need to go?

Please help and provide code!Thanks!

Php Solutions

Solution 1 - Php

Try:

if (isset($_FILES['uploaded_file']) &&
    $_FILES['uploaded_file']['error'] == UPLOAD_ERR_OK) {
    $mail->AddAttachment($_FILES['uploaded_file']['tmp_name'],
                         $_FILES['uploaded_file']['name']);
}

Basic example can also be found here.

The function definition for AddAttachment is:

public function AddAttachment($path,
                              $name = '',
                              $encoding = 'base64',
                              $type = 'application/octet-stream')

Solution 2 - Php

File could not be Attached from client PC (upload)

In the HTML form I have not added following line, so no attachment was going:

enctype="multipart/form-data"

After adding above line in form (as below), the attachment went perfect.

<form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="form_phpm_mailer.php"  enctype="multipart/form-data">

Solution 3 - Php

This code help me in Attachment sending....

$mail->AddAttachment($_FILES['file']['tmp_name'], $_FILES['file']['name']);

Replace your AddAttachment(...) Code with above code

Solution 4 - Php

Use this code for sending attachment with upload file option using html form in phpmailer

 <form method="post" action="" enctype="multipart/form-data">
    				
    					
    				<input type="text" name="name" placeholder="Your Name *">
    				<input type="email" name="email" placeholder="Email *">
    				<textarea name="msg" placeholder="Your Message"></textarea>
    			
    					
    				<input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="30000" />
					<input type="file" name="userfile"  />
    			
    
    			<input name="contact" type="submit" value="Submit Enquiry" />
   </form>
			

	<?php

		
	
	
		if(isset($_POST["contact"]))
		{
			
			/////File Upload
			
			// In PHP versions earlier than 4.1.0, $HTTP_POST_FILES should be used instead
			// of $_FILES.

			$uploaddir = 'uploads/';
			$uploadfile = $uploaddir . basename($_FILES['userfile']['name']);

			echo '<pre>';
			if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'], $uploadfile)) {
				echo "File is valid, and was successfully uploaded.\n";
			} else {
				echo "Possible invalid file upload !\n";
			}

			echo 'Here is some more debugging info:';
			print_r($_FILES);

			print "</pre>";
			
			
			////// Email
			
			
			require_once("class.phpmailer.php");
			require_once("class.smtp.php");
			
			
			
			$mail_body = array($_POST['name'], $_POST['email'] , $_POST['msg']);
			$new_body = "Name: " . $mail_body[0] . ", Email " . $mail_body[1] . " Description: " . $mail_body[2];
			
			
			
			$d=strtotime("today"); 
			
			$subj = 'New enquiry '. date("Y-m-d h:i:sa", $d);
		
			$mail = new PHPMailer(); // create a new object
	
			
			//$mail->IsSMTP(); // enable SMTP
			$mail->SMTPDebug = 1; // debugging: 1 = errors and messages, 2 = messages only ,false = Disable 
			$mail->Host = "mail.yourhost.com";
			$mail->Port = '465';
			$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // enable 
			$mail->SMTPSecure = true;
			$mail->IsHTML(true);
			$mail->Username = "[email protected]"; //[email protected]
			$mail->Password = "password";
			$mail->SetFrom("[email protected]", "Your Website Name");
			$mail->Subject = $subj;
			$mail->Body    = $new_body;
			
			$mail->AddAttachment($uploadfile);
			
			$mail->AltBody = 'Upload';
			$mail->AddAddress("[email protected]");
			 if(!$mail->Send())
				{
				echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
				}
				else
				{
					
				echo '<p>		Success				 </p> ';
			
				}
			
		}
		
	

?>

Use this link for reference.

Solution 5 - Php

This will work perfectly

    <form method='post' enctype="multipart/form-data">
    <input type='file' name='uploaded_file' id='uploaded_file' multiple='multiple' />
    <input type='submit' name='upload'/> 
    </form>
    
    <?php
           if(isset($_POST['upload']))
        {
             if (isset($_FILES['uploaded_file']) && $_FILES['uploaded_file']['error'] == UPLOAD_ERR_OK)
                {
                     if (array_key_exists('uploaded_file', $_FILES))
                        { 
                            $mail->Subject = "My Subject";
                            $mail->Body = 'This is the body';
                            $uploadfile = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), sha1($_FILES['uploaded_file']['name']));
                        if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES['uploaded_file']['tmp_name'], $uploadfile))
                             $mail->addAttachment($uploadfile,$_FILES['uploaded_file']['name']); 
                            $mail->send();
                            echo 'Message has been sent';
                        }       
                else
                    echo "The file is not uploaded. please try again.";
                }
                else
                    echo "The file is not uploaded. please try again";
        }
    ?>

Solution 6 - Php

You'd use $_FILES['uploaded_file']['tmp_name'], which is the path where PHP stored the uploaded file (it's a temporary file, removed automatically by PHP when the script ends, unless you've moved/copied it elsewhere).

Assuming your client-side form and server-side upload settings are correct, there's nothing you have to do to "pull in" the upload. It'll just magically be available in that tmp_name path.

Note that you WILL have to validate that the upload actually succeeded, e.g.

if ($_FILES['uploaded_file']['error'] === UPLOAD_ERR_OK) {
    ... attach file to email ...
}

Otherwise you may try to do an attachment with a damaged/partial/non-existent file.

Solution 7 - Php

Hey guys the code below worked perfectly fine for me. Just replace the setFrom and addAddress with your preference and that's it.

<?php
/**
 * PHPMailer simple file upload and send example.
 */
//Import the PHPMailer class into the global namespace
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;
$msg = '';
if (array_key_exists('userfile', $_FILES)) {
    // First handle the upload
    // Don't trust provided filename - same goes for MIME types
    // See http://php.net/manual/en/features.file-upload.php#114004 for more thorough upload validation
    $uploadfile = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), hash('sha256', $_FILES['userfile']['name']));
    if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'], $uploadfile)) 
    {
        // Upload handled successfully
        // Now create a message

        require 'vendor/autoload.php';
        $mail = new PHPMailer;
        $mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'CV from Web site');
        $mail->addAddress('[email protected]', 'CV');
        $mail->Subject = 'PHPMailer file sender';
        $mail->Body = 'My message body';
        
        $filename = $_FILES["userfile"]["name"]; // add this line of code to auto pick the file name
        //$mail->addAttachment($uploadfile, 'My uploaded file'); use the one below instead
        
        $mail->addAttachment($uploadfile, $filename);
        if (!$mail->send()) 
        {
            $msg .= "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
        } 
        else 
        {
            $msg .= "Message sent!";
        }
    } 
        else 
        {
            $msg .= 'Failed to move file to ' . $uploadfile;
        }
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <title>PHPMailer Upload</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php if (empty($msg)) { ?>
    <form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
        <input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="4194304" />
        <input name="userfile" type="file">
        <input type="submit" value="Send File">
    </form>
    
<?php } else {
    echo $msg;
} ?>
</body>
</html>

Solution 8 - Php

In my own case, i was using serialize() on the form, Hence the files were not being sent to php. If you are using jquery, use FormData(). For example

<form id='form'>
<input type='file' name='file' />
<input type='submit' />
</form>

Using jquery,

$('#form').submit(function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
var formData = new FormData(this); // grab all form contents including files
//you can then use formData and pass to ajax

});

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	adamdehaven	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Php	drew010	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Php	Imtiaz Ahmad	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Php	Irshad Khan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Php	JWC May	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Php	Abdulhakim Zeinu	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Php	Marc B	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Php	pancy1	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Php	Rotimi	View Answer on Stackoverflow