I’m working on a Rails app that uses Mailgun for handling incoming emails. Right now, it’s running on a cloud platform, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to test the email processing part on my local machine.
It’s kind of a pain to push every little change to the cloud just to see if it works. Does anyone know if there’s a way to use Mailgun locally for testing? I’m the only one using this app at the moment, so it’s not a big deal if things break.
If it is possible, could you give me some pointers on how to set it up? I’d really appreciate any advice or tips you can share. Thanks a bunch!
For local Mailgun testing in Rails, I’ve found success using the ‘letter_opener’ gem. It intercepts outgoing emails and opens them in your default browser instead of sending them. Add it to your Gemfile, configure it in development.rb, and you’re set. This approach doesn’t require an internet connection or external services, making it ideal for offline development. It won’t handle incoming emails, but for testing outgoing Mailgun integration, it’s a solid choice. Just remember to switch back to actual Mailgun settings when deploying to production.
yo, i’ve dealt with this before. try using mailcatcher for local email testing. it’s super easy to set up - just gem install mailcatcher and run it. then point your rails app to send emails to localhost:1025. you can view all sent emails at http://localhost:1080. it’s not perfect but works for basic testing without cloud stuff.
I’ve been in a similar situation when trying to debug Mailgun email processing locally. I found that setting up a local SMTP server like MailHog allowed me to inspect outgoing emails without relying on the cloud. I configured my Rails app to point to MailHog for development, and I used ngrok to expose my local server for receiving Mailgun webhooks. This approach enabled me to simulate both the sending and receiving of emails on my local machine. It took some initial configuration but proved very efficient in speeding up my development cycle.