mail() from php.net manual: difference between "to" and "to-header"
email, email-headers, html-email, php
Solution
Recommend you to use PHP Mailer class instead of internal mail() function. There are several reasons to use PHP Mailer:
- the ability to use your own smtp
- better chance to get not be listed at spam (main reason)
- easy to use
Problem
In the php.net example for `mail()`, two different addresses are used for `$to` and the additional header information "To: ...": ``` <?php // multiple recipients $to = 'aidan@example.com' . ', '; // note the comma $to .= 'wez@example.com'; $subject = 'Birthday Reminders for August'; // message $message = '<html> ... </html>'; // To send HTML mail, the Content-type header must be set $headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n"; $headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n"; // Additional headers $headers .= 'To: Mary <mary@example.com>, Kelly <kelly@example.com>' . "\r\n"; $headers .= 'From: Birthday Reminder <birthday@example.com>' . "\r\n"; $headers .= 'Cc: birthdayarchive@example.com' . "\r\n"; $headers .= 'Bcc: birthdaycheck@example.com' . "\r\n"; // Mail it mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers); ?> ``` So my question is: you need to provide `$to` for the syntax of `mail()`, however you cannot use the format `Name <email@domain.com>`, this you can only do in the additional header information, right? So first, why does the example on php.net send the mail to 4 different people (because they use different e-mail addresses for `$to` and for the header information), this really irritates me!? And secondly, if I want to send the mail to only 1 person (and only 1 time) and I want to use the format `Name <email@domain.com>`, how should I do that? Use it in `$to` as well as the header information? Will the person then receive the e-mail twice?