The built-in email connectors enables applications to send email.The email connector is built in to LoopBack, so you don’t need to install it.

Nodemailer: Where to Find Documentation

The email connector is essentially a LoopBack-integrated interface to the nodemailer library. This page gives a usage example; for full documentation of configuration options, refer to the nodemailer documention.

Creating an email data source

Create a new email data source with the data source generator:

$ lb datasource

With API Connect v5 developer toolkit:

$ apic create --type datasource

When prompted, select Email as the connector. This creates an entry in datasources.json like this (for example):

server/datasources.json

...
"myEmailDataSource": {
  "name": "myEmailDataSource",
  "connector": "mail"
}
...

Configuring an email data source

Configure the email data source by editing /server/datasources.json (for example):

server/datasources.json

{
  ...
  "myEmailDataSource": {
    "connector": "mail",
    "transports": [{
      "type": "smtp",
      "host": "smtp.private.com",
      "secure": false,
      "port": 587,
      "tls": {
        "rejectUnauthorized": false
      },
      "auth": {
        "user": "me@private.com",
        "pass": "password"
      }
    }]
  }
  ...
}

More Configuration Options

For full documentation of configuration options, refer to the nodemailer documention.

Using GMail

Tip: With GMail, you may need to enable the “access for less secure apps” option.See:

• Nodemailer: Using GMail
• Nodemailer: Authentication for more information.

For GMail, configure your email data source as follows:

server/datasources.json

...
"Email": {
  "name": "mail",
  "connector": "mail",
  "transports": [{
    "type": "SMTP",
    "host": "smtp.gmail.com",
    "secure": true,
    "port": 465,
    "auth": {
      "user": "name@gmail.com",
      "pass": "pass"
    }
  }]
}
...

Connecting a model to the email data source

Then, connect models to the data source in /server/model-config.json as follows (for example):

server/model-config.json

{
  ...
  "Email": {
    "dataSource": "myEmailDataSource"
  },
  ...
}

Sending email messages

The following example illustrates how to send emails from an app. Add the following code to a file in the /models directory:

server/models/model.js

module.exports = function(MyModel) {
  // send an email
  MyModel.sendEmail = function(cb) {
    MyModel.app.models.Email.send({
      to: 'foo@bar.com',
      from: 'you@gmail.com',
      subject: 'my subject',
      text: 'my text',
      html: 'my <em>html</em>'
    }, function(err, mail) {
      console.log('email sent!');
      cb(err);
    });
  }
};

The default model definition file is common/models/email.json in the LoopBack repository.

Confirming email address

See Verifying email addresses.

Tags: connectors