postmark

What is postmark?

Postmark is an npm package that provides a simple and efficient way to send emails through the Postmark email service. It offers functionalities for sending transactional emails, managing email templates, and handling email events.

What are postmark's main functionalities?

Send Email

This feature allows you to send a simple email using the Postmark service. You need to initialize the Postmark client with your server API token and then use the `sendEmail` method to send an email.

const postmark = require('postmark');
const client = new postmark.ServerClient('your-server-api-token');

client.sendEmail({
  'From': '[e-mail]',
  'To': '[e-mail]',
  'Subject': 'Test Email',
  'TextBody': 'Hello from Postmark!'
});

Send Email with Template

This feature allows you to send an email using a predefined template. You need to specify the template ID and provide the template model data.

const postmark = require('postmark');
const client = new postmark.ServerClient('your-server-api-token');

client.sendEmailWithTemplate({
  'From': '[e-mail]',
  'To': '[e-mail]',
  'TemplateId': 123456,
  'TemplateModel': {
    'name': 'John Doe',
    'product_name': 'Awesome Product'
  }
});

Get Email Delivery Statistics

This feature allows you to retrieve email delivery statistics from Postmark. The `getDeliveryStatistics` method returns various metrics related to email delivery.

const postmark = require('postmark');
const client = new postmark.ServerClient('your-server-api-token');

client.getDeliveryStatistics().then((stats) => {
  console.log(stats);
});

Other packages similar to postmark

nodemailer

Nodemailer is a popular npm package for sending emails. Unlike Postmark, which is a service-specific client, Nodemailer is a general-purpose email sending library that can be used with various email services, including SMTP, AWS SES, and more.

sendgrid

SendGrid is another email service provider with an npm package for sending emails. Similar to Postmark, SendGrid offers functionalities for sending transactional emails, managing templates, and handling email events. However, SendGrid is known for its scalability and extensive API features.

mailgun-js

Mailgun-js is an npm package for interacting with the Mailgun email service. It provides similar functionalities to Postmark, such as sending emails, managing templates, and handling events. Mailgun is known for its powerful email validation and analytics features.

README

Postmark.js

Send emails with the greatest of ease! Now your node.js application can send emails through Postmark.

As the official node.js library for Postmark, postmark.js has support for the entire REST API. To see everything that is supported, have a look at the complete documentation, but the following information covers the most common sending cases...

Install

Installing postmark is super simple:

npm install postmark

Sending an Email

To send your first email, all you need to do is:

var postmark = require("postmark");
var client = new postmark.Client("<server key>");

client.sendEmail({
    "From": "[e-mail]", 
    "To": "[e-mail]", 
    "Subject": "Test", 
    "TextBody": "Test Message"
});

Replace with the server key provided by Postmark and you are good to go!

Your message must be provided in the format specified in the Postmark API and will be verified. The member names of message payloads are case-sensitive, and messages not matching the documented format will not be accepted by the API.

All client methods accept a callback as the their last parameter, following the normal node.js callback convention:

callback(error, result){...} 

To send attachments with the email, use the following format may be used:

var postmark = require("postmark");
var client = new postmark.Client("<server key>");
var fs = require('fs');

client.sendEmail({
    "From": "[e-mail]", 
    "To": "[e-mail]", 
    "Subject": "Test", 
    "TextBody": "Test Message",
    "Attachments": [{
      // Reading synchronously here to condense code snippet:
      "Content": fs.readFileSync("./unicorns.jpg").toString('base64'),
      "Name": "PrettyUnicorn.jpg",
      "ContentType": "image/jpeg"
    }]
}, function(error, result) {
    if(error) {
        console.error("Unable to send via postmark: " + error.message);
        return;
    }
    console.info("Sent to postmark for delivery")
});

Sending a Batch of Messages

The Postmark API provides functionality for sending batches of emails with a single command, rather than issuing separate API calls for each message. You may access this feature by calling Client.sendEmailBatch(...), which behaves similarly to postmark.sendEmail(...) except that the first parameter is an array of messages formatted in the same manner as outlined above:

For example:

var postmark = require("postmark");
var client = new postmark.Client("<server key>");

var messages = [
    {
        "From": "[e-mail]",
        "To": "[e-mail]",
        "Subject": "Message #1",
        "TextBody": "This is email number 1."
    },
    {
        "From": "[e-mail]",
        "To": "[e-mail]",
        "Subject": "Message #2",
        "TextBody": "This is email number 2."
    }
];

client.sendEmailBatch(messages, function (error, batchResults) {
    if (error) {
        console.error("Unable to send via postmark: " + error.message);
        return;
    }
    console.info("Messages sent to postmark");
});

The Postmark API will return an array of statuses, one for each message sent. You may iterate over the batchResults for information about each sent message. For further details, please see the Postmark Batch API.

Sending an Email using a Template

The process of sending an email using a template in Postmark is similar to sending a single email, but there is a little bit of setup.

If you have not already created a template, login to the Postmark UI, navigate to one of your Servers, and add a template. Make note of the TemplateId, you will use that below. (You can also use our Template API to manage templates, if you wish to do so).

After you have created/selected a template to use, there are minor differences in the request payload for sending with a template..

First, you need to include the TemplateId, and TemplateModel (the values that you want to use in your template), Next, exclude the Subject, TextBody, and HtmlBody properties that you'd normally include when sending a non-templated email.

That's it! You're ready to send using a template stored with Postmark.

The following is a snippet showing a complete email with template request:

var postmark = require("postmark");
var client = new postmark.Client("<server key>");

client.sendEmailWithTemplate({
    "From": "[e-mail]", 
    "TemplateId": <templateId>,
    "To": "[e-mail]", 
    "TemplateModel": {
        "Property1" : 1,
        "Property2" : "hello"
    }
});

As with all other Postmark client calls, you can include an optional callback function, allowing you to handle any errors, and to examine the API response.

Happy Sending!