In this article I will explain with an example, how to implement Contact Us Form in ASP.Net Core MVC.
The Contact Us Form contains some TextBox controls, a Rich TextBox and a FileUpload control to attach file.
When the Send Button is clicked, the values from the TextBox fields are embedded into HTML string and the HTML string is send as Email along with the Attachment in ASP.Net Core MVC.
Note: For beginners in ASP.Net MVC Core, please refer my article ASP.Net MVC Core Hello World Tutorial with Sample Program example.
 
 
Namespaces
You will need to import the following namespaces.
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
 
 
Model
Following is a Model class named EmailModel with the following properties.
Note: IFormFile is the new Class for Files in .Net Core. It is a replacement of HttpPostedFileBase class.
 
public class ContactFormModel
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Subject { get; set; }
    public string Email { get; set; }
    public string Body { get; set; }
    public IFormFile Attachment { get; set; }
}
 
 
Mail Server Settings in AppSettings.json file
The mail server settings are saved in the Smtp section as shown below.
{
 "ConnectionStrings": {
    "DefaultConnection": "Server=(localdb)\\MSSQLLocalDB;Database=_CHANGE_ME;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=true"
 },
 "Smtp": {
    "Server": "smtp.gmail.com",
    "Port": 587,
    "FromAddress": "sender@gmail.com",
    "UserName": "sender@gmail.com",
    "Password": "GMAILor2STEP-PASSWORD"
 }
}
 
 
Controller
The Controller consists of two Action methods.
Action method for handling GET operation
Inside this Action method, simply the View is returned.
 
Action method for handling POST operation
This Action method handles the call made from the POST function from the View.
Note: This example uses Model class object for capturing Form field values, for more details please refer my article ASP.Net Core: Form Submit (Post) Example.
 
MailMessage Class Properties
Following are the required properties of the MailMessage class.
From – Sender’s email address.
To – Recipient(s) Email Address.
CC – Carbon Copies (if any).
BCC – Blind Carbon Copies (if any).
Subject – Subject of the Email.
Body – Body of the Email.
IsBodyHtml – Specify whether body contains text or HTML mark up.
Attachments – Attachments (if any).
ReplyTo – ReplyTo Email address.
 
SMTP Class Properties
Following are the properties of the SMTP class.
Host – SMTP Server URL (Gmail: smtp.gmail.com).
EnableSsl – Specify whether your host accepts SSL Connections (Gmail: True).
UseDefaultCredentials – Set to True in order to allow authentication based on the Credentials of the Account used to send emails.
Credentials – Valid login credentials for the SMTP server (Gmail: email address and password).
Port – Port Number of the SMTP server (Gmail: 587).
Note: The mail server settings will be read from AppSettings.json, for more details please refer Read Email Settings from AppSettings.json in ASP.Net Core.
 
When the Form is submitted, the posted values are captured through the ContactFormModel class object.
The Sender email address (from) is fetched from the Smtp section of the AppSettings.json file, the Subject and Body are fetched from their respective Model properties.
If a file is attached then it is added as attachment to the Attachments List of the MailMessage object and all these values are set into an object of the MailMessage class.
Finally, object of the SmtpClient class is created and the settings of the Mail Server such as Host, Port, Username and Password are fetched from the Smtp section of the AppSettings.json file and are set in respective properties of the SmtpClient class object.
Note: It is necessary to use the sender’s email address credentials while defining the Gmail SMTP Server Credentials as Gmail the sender’s email address must be same as the Gmail Username specified in credentials.
 
Finally, a success message is set to a ViewBag object named Message which will be later displayed on the View.
public class HomeController : Controller
{
    private IConfiguration Configuration;
    public HomeController(IConfiguration _configuration)
    {
        Configuration = _configuration;
    }
 
    // GET: Home
    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }
 
    [HttpPost]
    public IActionResult Index(ContactFormModel model)
    {
        //Read SMTP settings from AppSettings.json.
        string host = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:Server");
        int port = this.Configuration.GetValue<int>("Smtp:Port");
        string fromAddress = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:FromAddress");
        string userName = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:UserName");
        string password = this.Configuration.GetValue<string>("Smtp:Password");
 
        using (MailMessage mm = new MailMessage(fromAddress, "admin@aspsnippets.com"))
        {
            mm.Subject = model.Subject;
            mm.Body = "Name: " + model.Name + "<br /><br />Email: " + model.Email + "<br />" + model.Body;
            mm.IsBodyHtml = true;
 
            if (model.Attachment.Length > 0)
            {
                string fileName = Path.GetFileName(model.Attachment.FileName);
                mm.Attachments.Add(new Attachment(model.Attachment.OpenReadStream(), fileName));
            }
 
            using (SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient())
            {
                smtp.Host = host;
                smtp.EnableSsl = true;
                NetworkCredential NetworkCred = new NetworkCredential(userName, password);
                smtp.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
                smtp.Credentials = NetworkCred;
                smtp.Port = port;
                smtp.Send(mm);
                ViewBag.Message = "Email sent sucessfully.";
            }
        }
 
        return View();
    }
}
 
 
View
The View consists of an HTML Form with following ASP.Net Tag Helpers attributes.
asp-action – Name of the Action. In this case the name is Index.
asp-controller – Name of the Controller. In this case the name is Home.
method – It specifies the Form Method i.e. GET or POST. In this case it will be set to POST.
The Form consists of HTML TextBox, TextArea, FileUpload element and a Submit Button.
The Body TextArea (Multiline TextBox) is made a Rich TextBox using the TinyMCE RichTextEditor plugin.
Note: For more details, please refer my article Implement TinyMCE RichTextBox (RichTextEditor) in ASP.Net Core.
 
When the Send Button is clicked, the Form values are sent to the Controller.
@addTagHelper*, Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.TagHelpers
@{
    Layout = null;
}
 
<!DOCTYPE html>
 
<html>
<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width"/>
    <title>Index</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form method="post" asp-controller="Home" asp-action="Index" enctype="multipart/form-data">
        <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
            <tr>
                <td style="width: 80px">Name:</td>
                <td><input type="text" name="Name"/></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Subject:</td>
                <td><input type="text" name="Subject"/></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Email:</td>
                <td><input type="text" name="Email"/></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td valign="top">Body:</td>
                <td><textarea cols="20" rows="10" name="Body"></textarea></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Attachment:</td>
                <td><input type="file" name="Attachment"/></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td></td>
                <td><input type="submit" value="Send"/></td>
            </tr>
        </table>
        <br/>
        <span style="color:green">@ViewBag.Message</span>
    </form>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/tinymce/4.0.20/tinymce.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        tinymce.init({ selector: 'textarea', width: 300 });
    </script>
</body>
</html>
 
 
Errors while sending Email using Gmail
The following error occurs when you try to send email using Gmail credentials in your ASP.Net MVC application.
The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required. Learn more at
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Net.Mail.SmtpException: The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required. Learn more at
 
Solution
GMAIL Error: The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated
 
 
Screenshots
The Contact Us Form
Implement Contact Us Form in ASP.Net Core
 
The received email
Implement Contact Us Form in ASP.Net Core
 
 
Downloads
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