Hello World! Let us see how we can send emails just by calling an API. Prerequisites Fundamental knowledge of Javascript, Node.js, and Express.js. Gmail Account Node Editor of your choice (E.g. VS Code) Postman (To test the API) Gmail Configuration To send emails from API, we need to configure Gmail with the below things: Headover to https://myaccount.google.com/security Enable 2-step verification. Click on App passwords. Google would prompt you for your password. Type in your password and enter. Select in the "Select App" drop-down. Other (Custom Name) Provide a name and click on button. Generate You will be getting a password. Store it in a safe place. Server Let us create a simple express server, where we will be creating our API that sends an email yarn init -y
# OR
npm init -y Install the following dependencies Express Dotenv - Where we will be storing the password and sender email address Nodemailer - An NPM package to send emails. Body-parser yarn add express dontenv nodemailer body-parser Let's create a file in the root level to store sensitive data .env PORT = 4000
EMAIL = "youremail@yourdomain.com"
EMAIL_PASS = "your_password" Now let's write a basic express server which serves some static content. Create file and add the following server.js const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
const app = express();
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('The server is running');
});
app.listen(process.env.PORT || 4000, () => console.log('Backend is running on localhost:4000')); Now we have written a simple get request, that would print message when we hit the path. The server is running / Type in the terminal to run the application. The app would run in . Open it in the browser, you would be seeing the message in the browser. Now we've successfully set up an express server. node server localhost:4000 "The server is running" The Send Email API Now let's create an API for sending emails. Create a post request, get necessary details like subject, message and recipient email from the request body, create a node mailer instance and send the email. app.post('/send-email', (req,res)=>{
  const mailTransporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    service: 'gmail',
    // getting sender email and password from .env file
    auth: {
        user: process.env.EMAIL,
        pass: process.env.EMAIL_PASS
    }
  });

  // Getting the recipient email, subject and the message from the req body
  const mailDetails = {
    from: process.env.EMAIL,
    to: req.body.to,
    subject: req.body.subject,
    text: req.body.message
  };
  // Sending email through the node mailer
  mailTransporter.sendMail(mailDetails, (err, data) => {
    if(err) {
        // Returning the error message in case of any errors
        res.send(err)
    } else {
        // Returning Success message when email is sent successfully
        res.send(`Email sent successfully to ${req.body.to}`)
    }
});
}) The final code would be const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
const app = express();
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('The server is running');
});

app.post('/send-email', (req,res)=>{
  const mailTransporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    service: 'gmail',
    // getting sender email and password from .env file
    auth: {
        user: process.env.EMAIL,
        pass: process.env.EMAIL_PASS
    }
  });

  // Getting the recipient email, subject and the message from the req body
  const mailDetails = {
    from: process.env.EMAIL,
    to: req.body.to,
    subject: req.body.subject,
    text: req.body.message
  };
  // Sending email through the node mailer
  mailTransporter.sendMail(mailDetails, (err, data) => {
    if(err) {
        // Returning the error message in case of any errors
        res.send(err)
    } else {
        // Returning Success message when email is sent successfully
        res.send(`Email sent successfully to ${req.body.to}`)
    }
});
})

app.listen(process.env.PORT || 4000, () => console.log('Backend is running on localhost:4000')); Testing API Now we are done with writing the API. Let's run the server and send an email. Once the server is up, head over to the Postman app. Create a new Post request. Enter in the URL bar. localhost:4000/send-email Head over to the 'Body' tab, and click on the 'raw' radio button. Type in the details in JSON format like this. {
    "to": "receiver@someemail.com",
    "subject": "This is a test email",
    "message": "Hi, I've sent this email from an API!"
} Hit the send button to send the message. Hope this is helpful to you. Looking forward to your feedback. Thank you! Also published . here

The code in this story is for educational purposes. The readers are solely responsible for whatever they build with it.

Walkthroughs, tutorials, guides, and tips. This story will teach you how to do something new or how to do something better.

How to Send Emails Using an API

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