# Sending Your First Email With ActionMailer In Rails 7 > Follow the basics to send an email using a Postmark template and view it in the browser during development. - Canonical: https://dennisokeeffe.com/blog/2022-03-08-sending-your-first-email-with-action-mailer-in-rails-7 - Published: 2022-03-08 - Updated: 2022-03-08 - Tags: ruby, ruby-on-rails This post will act as "Hello, World" of sorts for sending your first email using `ActionMailer` with Ruby on Rails 7. We will take a welcome email example from the [Postmark templates](https://github.com/wildbit/postmark-templates/tree/master/templates-inlined/basic/welcome) and send it from the Rails console and view it in the browser using the [`letter_opener`](https://github.com/ryanb/letter_opener) gem. Source code can be found [here](https://github.com/okeeffed/demo-action-mailer-hello-world) ## Prerequisites 1. Basic familiarity with setting up a [new Rails project](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html). ## Getting started We will use Rails to initialize the project `demo-action-mailer-hello-world`: ```s # Create a new rails project $ rails new demo-action-mailer-hello-world $ cd demo-action-mailer-hello-world ``` Update your Gemfile and add the following: ```rb gem "letter_opener", group: :development ``` To install the gem, run `bundle` on the command line. ## Configuring the developer environment for Letter Opener Update `config/environments/development.rb` to add the following two lines: ```rb config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :letter_opener config.action_mailer.perform_deliveries = true ``` ## Creating our welcome email We are going to create a basic welcome email. ```s # Create a User mailer $ bin/rails generate mailer User # Create a file for our email template $ touch app/views/user_mailer/welcome_email.html.erb app/views/user_mailer/welcome_email.text.erb ``` Inside of `app/mailers/application_mailer.rb` we have a default from address of `from@example.com`. We can leave that for now. We are going to use the [`postmark-templates`](https://github.com/wildbit/postmark-templates/tree/master/templates-inlined/basic/welcome) for our Welcome email. I did a regex swap of variables to ensure they're using ERB. Inside of `app/views/user_mailer/welcome_email.html.erb`, let's add the following: ```html ``` Also ensure that you update `app/views/layouts/mailer.html.erb`: ```rb <%= yield %> ``` ## Setting up our text email template As for the text file `app/views/user_mailer/welcome_email.text.erb`: ```txt Thanks for trying out [Product Name]. We’ve pulled together some information and resources to help you get started. [Product Name] ( https://example.com ) ****************** Welcome, <%= @name %>! ****************** Thanks for trying [Product Name]. We’re thrilled to have you on board. To get the most out of [Product Name], do this primary next step: Do this Next ( <%= @action_url %> ) For reference, here's your login information: Login Page: <%= @login_url %> Username: <%= @username %> You've started a <%= @trial_length %> day trial. You can upgrade to a paying account or cancel any time. Trial Start Date: <%= @trial_start_date %> Trial End Date: <%= @trial_end_date %> If you have any questions, feel free to email our customer success team ( <%= @support_email %> ). (We're lightning quick at replying.) We also offer live chat ( <%= @live_chat_url %> ) during business hours. Thanks, [Sender Name] and the [Product Name] Team P.S. Need immediate help getting started? Check out our help documentation ( <%= @help_url %> ). Or, just reply to this email, the [Product Name] support team is always ready to help! If you’re having trouble with the button above, copy and paste the URL below into your web browser. <%= @action_url %> © 2021 [Product Name]. All rights reserved. [Company Name, LLC] 1234 Street Rd. Suite 1234 ``` ## Updating our Mailer class We want to be able to pass some arguments to this email template. Some will come dynamically, and others we will set statically as part of the mailer method for demonstration purposes. Inside of `app/mailers/user_mailer.rb`, update the code to the following: ```rb class UserMailer < ApplicationMailer default from: 'notifications@example.com' def welcome_email @email = params[:email] @name = params[:name] @username = params[:username] @trial_start_date = Date.current @trial_end_date = Date.current + 7.days @trial_length = '7 days' @support_email = 'support@example.com' @help_url = 'https://help.example.com' @action_url = 'http://localhost:3000' @login_url = 'http://localhost:3000/login' mail(to: @email, subject: 'Welcome to My Awesome Site') end end ``` In one terminal, start the Rails server with `rails s` and open up the browser at `localhost:3000`. In another, start the Rails console with `rails c`. We can send an email from the console with the following: ```s UserMailer.with(email: "hello@example.com", name: "Billy Bob", username: "dennisokeeffe92").welcome_email.deliver_later ``` Letter opener will open up the URL with a preview. ![Successfully sent email](https://cdn.dennisokeeffe.com/assets/2022-03-08-sending-your-first-email-with-action-mailer-in-rails-7/1-example-email.webp) Perfect! Our welcome email has been sent with our expected values. ## Summary Today's post demonstrated how to send a basic email template in Rails using ActionMailer. We used the letter opener gem to preview those emails sent in development. ## Resources and further reading - [Rails getting started](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html) - [ActionMailer basics](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/action_mailer_basics.html) - [Source code](https://github.com/okeeffed/demo-action-mailer-hello-world) _Photo credit: [`joelfilip`](https://unsplash.com/@joelfilip)_