email - How to Check if a mail was received with php

Question

i'm new in php. I want to send an email to someone and afterwards i need to check if this mail could be received. How do i do that? Hope you guys understand my problem ;). Thanks in advance. Marc

Answer 1

That's a really sticky question. The only real way is to have PHP monitor an inbox to check for "undeliverable message" notices you might get back. If you're really wanting to go forward with it, look into POP3 connectors for PHP. Like this: http://pecl.php.net/package/POP3

if (strpos(strtolower($subject), 'undeliverable') !== false){
    //do whatever you want with the address that couldn't be reached
}

You technically wouldn't need a compiled PHP extension for POP3 (especially if you're new to PHP)... you could connect and read messages by opening a socket and speaking mail server: http://www.adamsinfo.com/a-rudimentary-php-pop3-example/

Edit (years later):

Definitely check out http://mailgun.net/, http://sendgrid.com/, and http://postmarkapp.com/.