Improving your Rails mailers with email_address_with_name

In almost all email programs, you can add a display name before your email address like so:

To: Matt Swanson <matt@example.com>

It’s a small touch, but it is a more human-readable way of addressing an email. Rails provides a helper utility to format email addresses in this style without resorting to manual string manipulation.

Usage

Use email_address_with_name to add a name in-front on an email address in a standard way

ActionMailer::Base.email_address_with_name("swan3788@gmail.com", "Matt Swanson")
=> "Matt Swanson <swan3788@gmail.com>"

This helper is available in all Rails mailers.

class UserMailer < ApplicationMailer
  default from: 'notifications@example.com'

  def welcome_email
    @user = params[:user]

    mail(
      to: email_address_with_name(@user.email, @user.display_name),
      subject: 'You have a new message'
    )
  end
end

Options

This helper handles nil gracefully as well.

ActionMailer::Base.email_address_with_name("swan3788@gmail.com", nil)
=> "swan3788@gmail.com"

And it handles escaping characters automatically:

ActionMailer::Base.email_address_with_name("mike@example.com", "Michael J. Scott")
=> "\"Michael J. Scott\" <mike@example.com>"

ActionMailer::Base.email_address_with_name("chip@example.com", 'John "Chip" Smith')
=> "\"John \\\"Chip\\\" Smith\" <chip@example.com>"

Additional Resources

Rails API: ActionMailer::Base#email_address_with_name

Boring Rails

Tip: Improving your Rails mailers with `email_address_with_name`

Usage

Options

Additional Resources