Revolutionizing Email Creation: A Deep Dive into React Email
Email is an indispensable tool for communication, but crafting well-designed and functional emails can be a daunting task for developers. The challenges are numerous, including limited HTML support, compatibility issues across various email clients, and the risk of emails landing in spam folders. To address these pain points, the Resend team has developed React Email, a next-generation solution for building emails.
What is React Email?
React Email is a collection of high-quality, unstyled components that enable developers to create emails using React, TypeScript, and Tailwind. It also offers a utility function to compile JSX code into email-friendly HTML, ensuring seamless rendering across all popular email clients.
Key Features of React Email
- Familiar Syntax: React Email’s syntax is easy to learn, especially for developers already familiar with React.
- Type Safety with TypeScript: React Email ships with TypeScript, providing static typing and helping developers catch errors early in the development process.
- Test Emails During Development: React Email leverages the Resend API to allow test emails to be sent during development, enabling developers to preview and adjust their emails before sending.
- Smooth Integration with Other Email Service Providers: React Email templates can be easily converted to email-friendly HTML and integrated with other email services like Nodemailer, SendGrid, or Resend.
- Open-Source Community: React Email is a free and open-source library, welcoming development contributions and fostering a supportive community.
Setting Up a Next.js Project with React Email
To get started with React Email, you’ll need to set up a Next.js project with TypeScript. Run the following command in your terminal:
npx create-next-app react-email-app --ts
Next, install React Email using npm or yarn:
npm install react-email
Create a new folder, react-email-starter, within your project directory, and install the project dependencies:
npm install
Designing an Email Template with React Email
Let’s build a promotional email for a fictional florist business using React Email. Create a new file, spring-sales.tsx, in the marketing subdirectory:
import { Html, Image, Button, Heading, Link } from 'eact-email';</p>
<p>const SpringSalesMail = () => {
return (
<Html>
<Image src="spring-sales.jpg" alt="Spring Sales" />
<Heading>Spring Sales are Here!</Heading>
<Button href="https://example.com">Shop Now</Button>
<Link href="https://example.com">Learn More</Link>
</Html>
);
};
Styling React Email Components
React Email offers two ways to style components: using a style object or a Tailwind component. We’ll use a mix of both strategies to design our email.
Integrating React Email with Nodemailer
To send emails using Nodemailer, create a new folder, email, in the app/api directory, and add a route.ts file inside. This file will contain the logic for handling email requests:
import { render } from 'eact-email/render';
import nodemailer from 'nodemailer';</p>
<p>const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
host: 'mtp.gmail.com',
port: 587,
secure: false,
auth: {
user: process.env.GMAIL<em>USER,
pass: process.env.GMAIL</em>PASSWORD,
},
});</p>
<p>export default async function handler(req, res) {
const { name, email } = req.body;
const springSalesMail = render(<SpringSalesMail name={name} />);
const mailOptions = {
from: process.env.GMAIL_USER,
to: email,
subject: 'Spring Sales are Here!',
html: springSalesMail,
};</p>
<p>transporter.sendMail(mailOptions, (error, info) => {
if (error) {
return res.status(400).json({ error: 'Error sending email' });
}
res.status(200).json({ message: 'Email sent successfully' });
});
}
MJML vs. React Email
MJML is a popular open-source email framework that provides prebuilt components for creating responsive email templates. While MJML has a proven track record, React Email offers a more modern approach to email creation, with a stronger focus on developer experience and integration with modern tooling.
Conclusion
React Email is a powerful tool that simplifies email creation by enabling React developers to leverage the power of React’s component-based architecture. With its modern approach, strong developer experience, and supportive community, React Email is an attractive solution for building and sending emails.