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Nodemailer provides a convenient way to send emails. In this article, we gonna learn how to send emails in node.js. 

1. Let's create a new express project using express generator.

npm i -g express-generator
express node-mail --view=hbs

cd node-mail

2. Create a folder config and inside this create a file mail.js.

config/mail.js

module.exports = { 
    host: process.env.MAIL_HOST,
    port: process.env.MAIL_PORT,
    username: process.env.MAIL_USERNAME,
    password: process.env.MAIL_PASSWORD, 
    from_address: process.env.MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS,
    from_name: process.env.MAIL_FROM_NAME
}

3. Install dotenv npm package.

npm i dotenv

After Installation import dotenv in app.js

require('dotenv').config();

4. Create a .env file in the root and add these environment variables.

MAIL_HOST=
MAIL_PORT=
MAIL_USERNAME=
MAIL_PASSWORD= 
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=
MAIL_FROM_NAME=

Note:- Update your email credentials.

5. Install nodemailer npm package.

npm i nodemailer

6. Create a utils folder. Inside this folder create mailer.js

utils/mailer.js

const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');
const config = require('../config/mail');
 
const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    host: config.host,
    port: config.port,
    secure: false, // true for 465, false for other ports
    auth: {
        user: config.username,
        pass: config.password
    },
},{
    from: `${config.from_name} <${config.from_address}>`
});

exports.sendMail = (fields) => transporter.sendMail(fields);

Note:- createTransport() takes two arguments

createTransport(transport, defaults)

You can override default properties by passing them into sendMail() function.

7. Create a folder controllers and inside this create notification.controller.js

controllers/notification.controller.js

const { sendMail } = require('../utils/mailer');
const hbs = require('hbs');
const fs = require('fs');
const readFile = require('util').promisify(fs.readFile);

exports.example1 = async (req, res) => {
    const email = 'akashmjp@gmail.com';
    const article = {
        title: 'Lorem Ipsum',
        description: 'Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.'
    }

    const content  = await readFile('views/emails/newsletter.hbs','utf8');  
    const template = hbs.compile(content);
    const html = template({ article });

    await sendMail({
        to: email,
        subject: 'Weekly Newsletter', 
        html: html
    })
    return res.send('Email Sent. - Example1')
}

exports.example2 = async (req, res) => {
    const email = 'akashmjp@gmail.com';
    const text = 'Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.'

    await sendMail({
        to: email,
        subject: 'Weekly Newsletter', 
        text: text
    })
    return res.send('Email Sent. - Example2')
}    

Here is a list of the useful properties of fields object:

from?: string | Address | undefined;
sender?: string | Address | undefined;
to?: string | Address | Array<string | Address> | undefined;
cc?: string | Address | Array<string | Address> | undefined;
bcc?: string | Address | Array<string | Address> | undefined;
replyTo?: string | Address | undefined;  
subject?: string | undefined;
text?: string | Buffer | Readable | AttachmentLike | undefined;
html?: string | Buffer | Readable | AttachmentLike | undefined; 
headers?: Headers | undefined;
attachments?: Attachment[] | undefined; 
priority?: "high"|"normal"|"low" | undefined;

You can also pass to property as an array of emails.

const emails = ['user1@gmail.com', 'user1@gmail.com'];
const text = 'Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.'

await sendMail({
    to: emails,
    subject: 'Weekly Newsletter', 
    text: text
})

Email with Attachment

await sendMail({
    to: email,
    subject: 'Weekly Newsletter', 
    text: text,
    attachments: [
        {
            path: 'https://www.ultimateakash.com/assets/img/logo/logo.png'
        }
    ]
})

you can also pass a custom name for the attachment.

{
    filename: 'mylogo.png',
    path: 'https://www.ultimateakash.com/assets/img/logo/logo.png'
}

Ref:- Checkout https://nodemailer.com/message/attachments

8. Update routes.

routes/index.js

const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
const notificationController = require('../controllers/notification.controller');

router.get('/example1', notificationController.example1);
router.get('/example2', notificationController.example2); 

module.exports = router;

9. Finally, start the project and open http://localhost:3000/example1

npm start

Github Repo: https://github.com/ultimateakash/node-mail