Cannot send even the simplest HTML Email in C# -

Question

I'm struggling, to get HTML Emails to work. I started blaming gmail smtp, since I was using that, while developing, but have now posted code to my webhost, and I still can only send plain text. I'm really sure that it's a really stupid small thing that I'm missing, but I can't cut away more code. I can't make it simpler, and it's still showing up as plain text in my outlook.

Here's my source:

  var EmailMessage = new MailMessage();
  EmailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;
  EmailMessage.Body = @"test...<br><b>Bold text</b>";

  using (var smtpClient = new SmtpClient("smtp.123.com")) {
    smtpClient.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
    smtpClient.Send("[email protected]", "[email protected]", "Account verification", EmailMessage.Body);
  }

This results in a plain text email with this content: test... Bold text

EDIT:
Changed

  var EmailMessage = new MailMessage();
  EmailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;
  EmailMessage.Body = @"<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset=""utf-8"" />
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
Test<br/>
<b>Bold text</b>
</body>
</html>";

  using (var smtpClient = new SmtpClient("smtp.123.com")) {
    smtpClient.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
    smtpClient.Send("[email protected]", "[email protected]", "Account verification", 
         EmailMessage.Body);
  }

Still ends up as plain text :(

Your body string is not valid html. HTML need proper tags and does not start with "test..." — jdweng
– jdweng, Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 16:18
I have tried <html>test... Bold text</html> <html><body>test... Bold text</body></html> <html><head></head><body>test... Bold text</body></html> — Henrik Ludvigsen Steenhoff
– Henrik Ludvigsen Steenhoff, Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 16:24
Still not valid. From VS menu : Project : Add New Item : HTML Page. Then paste your html and get the errors out before using. — jdweng
– jdweng, Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 16:33
Still the same, only plain text, with all html tags visible. — Henrik Ludvigsen Steenhoff
– Henrik Ludvigsen Steenhoff, Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 19:31
Are you getting exactly what you sent? If so then it just how you are viewing the results. HTML is text. So you just need to put text into a viewer that can display html. — jdweng
– jdweng, Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 21:01

Henrik Ludvigsen Steenhoff · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-15 06:32:03Z

2

I ended up solving it, and it was a stupid small thing. I sent the EmailMessage.Body instead of instead of Just EmailMessage

Here is my code now:

var EmailMessage = new MailMessage();
EmailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;
EmailMessage.Body = @"test...<br><b>Bold text</b>";

using (var smtpClient = new SmtpClient("smtp.123.com")) {
    smtpClient.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
    smtpClient.Send("[email protected]", "[email protected]", "Account verification", 
         EmailMessage);
}

edited Apr 15, 2020 at 6:32

answered Apr 14, 2020 at 5:25

Henrik Ludvigsen Steenhoff

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1 Comment

Jon Barker Over a year ago

Thanks, I was doing the same thing! Haha what a ridiculous bug.

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