X-Cart:Email Options

The 'General settings/Email options' page allows you to define options that affect sending of email notifications and newsletters.

Basic email options

• HTML mail: If selected, email notifications are sent in the form of HTML mail.

• Encode mail headers using "Base 64": If selected, mail headers are encoded with "Base 64" for correct presentation in mail clients.

• Use internal PHP mailer for sending newsletters: If selected, an internal PHP mailer is used for sending newsletters. You can unselect this check box to use the external admin/newsletter.sh mailer. When the number of newsletter subscribers is large, using the external mailer is recommended.
  (The setting "Use internal PHP mailer for sending newsletters" is available in the General settings/Email section in X-Cart versions 4.7.1 and earlier. Starting with X-Cart version 4.7.2 this setting can be found in the General settings/Modules->News Management section.)

Note: Using the external mailer is possible on Unix systems only.

X-Cart 4.4or above

• Add additional '-f' parameter to the PHP mail() function: If you experience problems with your store's mail, try switching this option on/off. '-f' is an optional flag that can be passed to sendmail; it sets the From address. Servers with certain configurations may block e-mail messages without this parameter. The Web server user should be added as a trusted user to the sendmail configuration to prevent adding the 'X-Warning' header to the message when the envelope sender (-f) is set using this method. For sendmail users, this file is /etc/mail/trusted-users. More information is available at http://php.net/mail

Email content options

• Add order details (including credit card information) to admin order notification message and admin order invoice (it is recommended to use PGP encryption with this option enabled): If selected, your customers' order details, including credit card information, are included into order notification messages to the Orders department and into order invoices in the Admin area (not shown to providers in X-Cart PLATINUM and PRO).

• Include user password in email notifications to the Users department: If selected, user passwords are included into email notifications sent to the Users department.

X-Cart 4.1or above

• Include user password into the email notification about successful profile creation sent to the user: If selected, user passwords are included into email notifications about successful profile creation sent to the profile owner.

• Maximum string length: Maximum number of characters which can be displayed on a line in the first column of a plain text email notification with a two-column layout. If a field name that needs to be displayed in the first column is longer than the maximum string length value, it is truncated (like 'First Name' would be truncated to 'First N...' if you set the maximum string length to 10).

SMTP options

It is a requirement with some ISPs that all mail from your store (email notifications, news messages, etc) should be sent through an SMTP server. For your X-Cart store, this means that an authentication step will be involved in the process of sending mail. X-Cart will need to log in to the SMTP server allowing the SMTP-AUTH extension to identify it as an authorized sender. To enable your X-Cart store to pass SMTP authentication automatically whenever an email message is sent from it, configure the options in this section.

• Use SMTP server instead of internal PHP mailer: Select this option to enable X-Cart to use an SMTP server (When this option is unselected, X-Cart uses the internal PHP mailer).
• SMTP server: Host name of the SMTP server that your X-Cart needs to use (like mail.example.com, smtp.example.com, etc)
• SMTP port: Port that needs to be used to connect to the SMTP server. By default, 25.
• SMTP "MAIL FROM" email address: Sender email address that will be specified in the SMTP envelope 'From' field in all messages sent from X-Cart. Please note that it is not the email address that the recipients of the message will be able to see as the address of the sender, but the address by which the SMTP server will be able to identify your store as an authorized sender. If this option is not set, X-Cart will attempt to use Site administrator email address defined in General settings/Company options.
• SMTP AUTH username and SMTP AUTH password: Username and password that need to be used for SMTP authentication.
• SMTP AUTH method: Method of SMTP authentication to be used. The following methods are supported by X-Cart: PLAIN, LOGIN, CRAM-MD5 and DIGEST-MD5. You need to select a method supported by the SMTP server that X-Cart will use. If you are not sure, which method to choose, you may just leave this option set to default (Automatically select best method); in this case, X-Cart will automatically check, what methods are supported, and will choose the most secure one.

Sending email over SSL

You can have your X-Cart store send email messages over a secure connection.

To enable sending email messages via SSL:

1. In the admin area, select the Settings -> General settings on the menu and then navigate to the Email section.

2. Select the 'Use SMTP server instead of internal PHP mailer' check box to enable sending messages via an SMTP server.

3. In the SMTP server settings, specify the SSL protocol followed by the SMTP server name.

Examples:

• ssl://yoursmtpserver.com
• tls://yoursmtpserver.com
• sslv3://yoursmtpserver.com

4. Specify a correct port for connecting to your SMTP server over SSL. For example, the default port for SSL is 465, for TLS/SSLV3 - 587.

Note: To use GMail services, do not specify anything for the TLS/SSLV3 connection.

5. Complete the rest of fields using your SMTP service credentials:

• username

• password

• method

Save changes, and you are all set.

Setup for sending email via Gmail / SSL

• Use SMTP server instead of internal PHP mailer: Turned ON
• SMTP server: ssl://smtp.gmail.com
• SMTP port: 465
• SMTP "MAIL FROM" email address: can be left empty
• SMTP AUTH username: Your full Gmail or Google Apps email address (e.g.example@gmail.com or example@yourdomain.com)
• SMTP AUTH password: Your Gmail or Google Apps email password
• SMTP AUTH method: Automatically select best method

In case of two factor authorization in Gmail account, setup App Password and enter it in 'AUTH password' field instead of regular Gmail password.