Testing SMTP message creation locally

Testing SMTP can be a pain. However, I found that MailCatcher is a pretty great tool for testing SMTP messages locally and quicker than waiting for real messages to arrive.

Per their documentation, gem install mailcatcher, then run as a daemon by just running mailcatcher. Point your script or app to localhost:1025, and you can throw faux-mail to your hearts content.

Disclaimer: this tip doesn’t help with the fact that you are trying to debug SMTP mails in the first place, but it does make it a bit less painful

Post Script: If you’re doing this kind of thing in Ruby, just use Pony instead of the native net/smtp.

It’s so much easier to handle. Use via_options: {address: "localhost", port: "1025" } to wrap MailCatcher into the development workflow