How do I send emails from a Node app?

The usual way is to use SMTP with a library like Nodemailer.

1) Install Nodemailer

npm install nodemailer

2) Create a transporter

Example using Gmail SMTP or any SMTP provider:

const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");

const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
  host: "smtp.example.com",
  port: 587,
  secure: false, // true for 465, false for 587
  auth: {
    user: "your-email@example.com",
    pass: "your-email-password-or-app-password",
  },
});

3) Send an email

async function sendEmail() {
  try {
    const info = await transporter.sendMail({
      from: '"My App" <your-email@example.com>',
      to: "recipient@example.com",
      subject: "Hello from Node",
      text: "This is a plain text email.",
      html: "<p>This is an <b>HTML</b> email.</p>",
    });

    console.log("Message sent:", info.messageId);
  } catch (err) {
    console.error("Error sending email:", err);
  }
}

sendEmail();

4) Use environment variables

Don’t hardcode credentials:

EMAIL_USER=your-email@example.com
EMAIL_PASS=your-password
SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
SMTP_PORT=587

Then:

require("dotenv").config();
const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");

const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
  host: process.env.SMTP_HOST,
  port: Number(process.env.SMTP_PORT),
  secure: false,
  auth: {
    user: process.env.EMAIL_USER,
    pass: process.env.EMAIL_PASS,
  },
});

Notes

• For Gmail, you usually need an App Password if 2FA is enabled.
• For production, consider services like SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES, or Postmark for better deliverability.
• If you need to send lots of emails, use a queue/background job so requests don’t block.

If you want, I can give you:

1. a Gmail-specific example,
2. a SendGrid example, or
3. a full Express API endpoint for sending mail.