Send a Simple HTML Email Using Ruby

Most recently in my Ruby endeavors, I needed an easy way to send simple HTML emails. I came up with what I think to be the most concise way of doing so. From the example I’ve given below you should be able to copy + paste and have something running in minutes, if not seconds. It simply leverages the lovely built-in Ruby class Net::SMTP. No need to install any additional RubyGems or anything else. Enjoy and have fun sending emails from your scripts, programs or anything else.

require 'net/smtp'

from    = "First Last <[email protected]>"
to      = "First Last <[email protected]>"
subject = "this is my subject"

message = <<MESSAGE_END
From: #{from}
To: #{to}
Subject: #{subject}
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Disposition: inline

<b>This is my simple HTML message</b><br /><br />

It goes on to tell of wonderful things you can do in ruby.
MESSAGE_END

Net::SMTP.start('localhost', 25) do |smtp|
  smtp.send_message message, from, to
end