CSharp Email Tutorial

CSharp is a powerful language with many features. The inbuilt SMTP pacakges under System.Net.Mail offer easy email functionality. In this post we will discuss how to send and receive email in C# and .NET core using SMTP and SDK clients.

Email sending in code

To send CSharp emails use the System.Net.Mail package that is included with the .NET runtime. Here is an example using XUnit to send en email from a MailSlurp SMTP server using PLAIN authentication.

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;
using mailslurp.Api;
using mailslurp.Client;
using mailslurp.Model;
using Xunit;

namespace SmtpService.Tests
{
    public class UnitTest0
    {
        [Fact]
        public void CanSendWithSMTP()
        {
            var smtpClient = new SmtpClient("your.smtp.host")
            {
                Port = 2525,
            };
            
            // send email to mailbox 
            smtpClient.Send(from: "test@external.com", recipients: "receiver@gmail.com", subject: "This inbound", body: "Hello");
        }
    }
}

Configure SMTP authentication

For some SMTP Mailservers such as those provided by MailSlurp you will need to use an authentication method.

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;
using mailslurp.Api;
using mailslurp.Client;
using mailslurp.Model;
using Xunit;

namespace SmtpService.Tests
{
    public class UnitTest1
    {
        [Fact]
        public void CanSendEmailWithMailSlurpSmtp()
        {
            var apiKey = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("API_KEY")
                         ?? throw new ArgumentNullException("Missing API_KEY environment variable containing MailSlurp key");

            // configure client
            var config = new Configuration();
            config.ApiKey.Add("x-api-key", apiKey);
            var inboxController = new InboxControllerApi(config);

            // create an smtp inbox
            var inbox = inboxController.CreateInboxWithOptions(new CreateInboxDto(
                inboxType: CreateInboxDto.InboxTypeEnum.SMTPINBOX
            ));
            Assert.Contains("@mailslurp.mx", inbox.EmailAddress);

            // get smtp host, port, password, username etc
            var imapSmtpAccessDetails = inboxController.GetImapSmtpAccess();
            var smtpClient = new SmtpClient(imapSmtpAccessDetails.SmtpServerHost)
            {
                Port = imapSmtpAccessDetails.SmtpServerPort,
                Credentials = new NetworkCredential(userName: imapSmtpAccessDetails.SmtpUsername, password: imapSmtpAccessDetails.SmtpPassword),
                // disable ssl recommended
                EnableSsl = false
            };
            
            // send email to inbox
            smtpClient.Send(from: "test@external.com", recipients: inbox.EmailAddress, subject: "This inbound", body: "Hello");
            
            // wait for email to arrive
            var waitController = new WaitForControllerApi(config);
            waitController.WaitForLatestEmail(inboxId: inbox.Id, timeout: 30_000);
        }
    }
}

Read email in CSharp

SMTP protocols are typically used for delivery of email messages. If you wish to read emails in CSharp applications you have a few options:

• Run an SMTP server for inbound emails and take custom actions in response
• Use an IMAP package to fetch messages
• Use an email SDK like MailSlurp to send and receive

Install MailSlurp Csharp email SDK

MailSlurp is a Csharp email API service that provides free disposable email accounts (or permanent custom domains) for sending and receiving emails in CSharp applications. Create a free account to obtain an API KEY and then install the open source NuGetPackage:

Configure email client

You can configure MailSlurp to receive emails in code as follows:

using mailslurp.Api;
using mailslurp.Client;
using mailslurp.Model;

var config = new Configuration();
config.ApiKey.Add("x-api-key", "your_api_key_here");

// create an inbox controller to control inboxes
var apiInstance = new InboxControllerApi(config);

// fetch emails
var Timeout = 30000L; // max milliseconds to wait
var UnreadOnly = true; // only count unread emails

var waitForInstance = new WaitForControllerApi(config);
var email = waitForInstance.WaitForLatestEmail(inbox.Id, Timeout, UnreadOnly);

Assert.NotNull(email);
Assert.Equal("Hello", email.Subject);
Assert.Contains("Your code is: ", email.Body);

More options

• Test emails with Selenium and CSharp
• Disposable email accounts for .NET