Send emails with XAMPP on Windows

On Linux emails from websites will be sent with the Sendmail program.
However, this program is not available for Windows.

But there is an alternative when you installed Archimedes with XAMPP.
When you install XAMPP, it asks to install Fake Sendmail.
When you install this program you can relay emails to a SMTP email server (even using SSL/TLS).

Step 1

Open “php.ini” (in “php” subdirectory of XAMPP, probably c:\xampp\php\php.ini).
Change the following line to the path of the fake sendmail program of XAMPP.
The fake sendmail program is located in the “sendmail” directory inside of XAMPP.

sendmail_path = "\"C:\xampp\sendmail\sendmail.exe\" -t"

Don’t forget the extra escaping slashes (\) and quotes (“), these are important!

Step 2

Open “sendmail.ini” (in “sendmail” subdirectory of XAMPP, probably c:\xampp\sendmail\sendmail.ini).
Find and change the following lines to the details of your SMTP server:

smtp_server=smtp.hoster.nl
smtp_port=465
smtp_ssl=ssl
auth_username=henk
auth_password=mypassword

Note: these lines are spread out across the sendmail.ini file.

Step 3

Restart the Apache webserver via the XAMPP control panel.

The YouTube video below explains the whole process in detail: