In this article I will explain with an example, how to implement
Contact Us Form in
ASP Net Core (.Net Core 8) MVC.
The
Contact Us Form contains some
TextBox controls, a Rich
TextBox and a
FileUpload control to attach file.
When the Send Button is clicked, the values from the
TextBox fields are embedded into
HTML string and the
HTML string is send as
Email along with the Attachment in
ASP Net Core (.Net Core 8) MVC.
Mail Server Settings in AppSettings.json file
The following Mail Server settings need to be saved in the
AppSettings.json file.
Note: It is necessary to use the sender’s email address credentials while defining the
Gmail SMTP Server Credentials as
Gmail the sender’s email address must be same as the
Gmail Username specified in credentials.
{
"Smtp": {
"Server":"smtp.gmail.com",
"Port":587,
"EnableSsl":true,
"DefaultCredentials":true,
"From":"sender@gmail.com",
"Username":"sender@gmail.com",
"Password":"GMAILor2STEP-PASSWORD"
}
}
Sending Email using Gmail SMTP
MailMessage class properties
Following are the required properties of the MailMessage class.
From – Sender’s email address.
To – Recipient(s) Email Address.
CC – Carbon Copies. (If any)
BCC – Blind Carbon Copies. (If any)
Subject – Subject of the Email.
Body – Body of the Email.
IsBodyHtml – Specify whether body contains text or HTML mark up.
Attachments – Attachments. (If any)
ReplyTo – ReplyTo Email address.
SMTP class properties
Following are the properties of the SMTP class.
Host – SMTP Server URL. (Gmail: smtp.gmail.com)
EnableSsl – Specify whether your host accepts SSL Connections. (Gmail: True)
UseDefaultCredentials – Set to True in order to allow authentication based on the Credentials of the Account used to send emails.
Credentials – Valid login credentials for the SMTP server. (Gmail: email address and password)
Port – Port Number of the SMTP server. (Gmail: 587)
Model
The Model class consists of the following properties.
Note: IFormFile is the new Class for Files in .Net Core. It is a replacement of HttpPostedFileBase class.
public class ContactFormModel
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Subject { get; set; }
public string Email { get; set; }
public string Body { get; set; }
public IFormFile Attachment { get; set; }
}
Namespaces
You will need to import the following namespaces
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;
Controller
The Controller consists of following Action methods.
Action method for handling GET operation
Inside this Action method, simply the View is returned.
Action method for handling POST operation
Inside this Action method, the posted values are captured through the ContactFormModel class object.
The Sender email address (from) is fetched from the
Smtp section of the
AppSettings.json file, the Subject and Body are fetched from their respective
Model properties.
If a file is attached, then it is added as attachment to the Attachments List of the MailMessage object and all these values are set into an object of the MailMessage class.
Then, an object of the
SmtpClient class is created and the values of
Host,
Port,
DefaultCredentials and
EnableSsl are fetched from the SMTP section of the
AppSettings.json file and are set in respective properties of the SmtpClient class object.
Finally, the
Send method is executed which sends the
Email and a success message is set to a
ViewBag object.
public class HomeController : Controller
{
private IConfiguration Configuration;
public HomeController(IConfiguration _configuration)
{
this.Configuration = _configuration;
}
// GET: Home
public IActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
[HttpPost]
public IActionResult Index(ContactFormModel model)
{
//Read SMTP settings from AppSettings.json.
string host = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:Server");
int port = this.Configuration.GetValue<int>("Smtp:Port");
string fromAddress = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:FromAddress");
string userName = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:UserName");
string password = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:Password");
bool enableSsl = this.Configuration.GetValue<bool>("Smtp:EnableSsl");
bool defaultCredentials = this.Configuration.GetValue<bool>("Smtp:DefaultCredentials");
using (MailMessage mm = new MailMessage(fromAddress, "admin@aspsnippets.com"))
{
mm.Subject = model.Subject;
mm.Body = "Name: " + model.Name + "<br /><br />Email: " + model.Email + "<br />" + model.Body;
mm.IsBodyHtml = true;
if (model.Attachment.Length > 0)
{
string fileName = Path.GetFileName(model.Attachment.FileName);
mm.Attachments.Add(new Attachment(model.Attachment.OpenReadStream(), fileName));
}
using (SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient())
{
smtp.Host = host;
smtp.Port = port;
smtp.EnableSsl = enableSsl;
smtp.UseDefaultCredentials = defaultCredentials;
smtp.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(userName, password);
smtp.Send(mm);
}
}
ViewBag.Message = "Email sentsucessfully.";
return View();
}
}
View
HTML Markup
Inside the View, in the very first line the ContactFormModel class is declared as model for the View.
asp-action – Name of the Action. In this case the name is Index.
asp-controller – Name of the Controller. In this case the name is Home.
method – It specifies the Form Method i.e. GET or POST. In this case it will be set to POST.
When the Send Button is clicked, the Form gets submitted and the Model object is sent to the Controller.
Finally, the
Send Button is clicked, the Form gets submitted and the
Email is sent.
@model ContactForm_Email_MVC_Core.Models.ContactFormModel
@addTagHelper*,Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.TagHelpers
@{
Layout = null;
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
<title>Index</title>
</head>
<body>
<form method="post" asp-controller="Home" asp-action="Index" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="width: 80px">Name:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="Name" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Subject:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="Subject" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Email:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="Email" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">Body:</td>
<td><textarea cols="20" rows="10" name="Body"></textarea></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Attachment:</td>
<td><input type="file" name="Attachment" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td><input type="submit" value="Send" /></td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<span style="color:green">@ViewBag.Message</span>
</form>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/tinymce/4.0.20/tinymce.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
tinymce.init({ selector:'textarea', width: 300 });
</script>
</body>
</html>
Errors while sending Email using Gmail
The following error occurs when you try to send email using
Gmail credentials in your ASP.Net MVC application.
The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required. Learn more at
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Net.Mail.SmtpException: The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required. Learn more at
Solution
Screenshots
The Contact Us Form
The received email
Downloads