Mailpit

I’ve always been a fan of the tray that’s available when CommandBox launches. On the Mac, it appears as a menu bar icon in the top menu (first icon below).

It has some very convenient built-in options:

Servername
├── Stop Server
├── Restart Server
├── Open...
│   ├── Webroot
│   ├── Server Home
│   ├── Site Home
│   └── Server Admin
├── Info
│   ├── Engine: adobe 2023.0.17+330864
│   ├── Webroot: /Path/to/website/
│   ├── URL: https://127.0.0.1:8443
│   ├── PID: 99999
│   └── Heap: Not set

I frequently need to access Mailpit and various log files as I work through the development process on a current project. This got me wondering if I could add some of my own frequently accessed items to the tray. It turns out you can add quite a few different things.

Enable the tray

First, enable the tray in the server.json file for the site.

"trayEnable": true,

Next, let’s start simple and add a single item to open Mailpit in a browser. The trayOptions setting accepts an array of objects. Each object should contain a label, an action, and one of [url, path, command]. The label is the text that appears in the tray. The action tells CommandBox what to perform (openbrowser, openfilesystem, runAsync, etc.). The [url, path, command] values provide the URL of the site, the filesystem path, or the command to execute, respectively.

Setting the tray options

"trayOptions": [
    {
        "label": "Mailpit Web Interface",
        "action": "openbrowser",
        "url": "http://localhost:8025"
    }
]

Let’s dive a little deeper with some other options.

Add a “divider” of blank space between CommandBox’s built-in options and the ones we are adding.

{
    "label": " ",
    "disabled": true
}

Open a folder on the filesystem.

{
    "label": "Open Log Folder",
    "action": "openfilesystem",
    "path": "${serverinfo.serverHomeDirectory}/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs"
}

Tail the last 100 lines of mailsent.log (macOS only as written, but adaptable for Linux or Windows).

{
    "label": "Tail mailsent.log",
    "action": "runAsync",
    "command": "tmpfile=$(mktemp -t tail-mailsent).command; printf '#!/bin/zsh\nprintf \"\\e]0;Tail mailsent.log\\a\"\nclear\ntail -n 100 -f \"%s\"\n' '${serverinfo.serverHomeDirectory}/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs/mailsent.log' > \"$tmpfile\"; chmod +x \"$tmpfile\"; open -a Terminal \"$tmpfile\""
}

Explanation of the tail command

Add some icons using emojis.

🛠 Development Tools
📬 Mailpit Web Interface
📂 Logs

Putting it all together

"trayEnable": true,
"trayOptions": [
    {
        "label": " ",
        "disabled": true
    },
    {
        "label": "🛠 Development Tools",
        "items": [
            {
                "label": "📬 Mailpit Web Interface",
                "action": "openbrowser",
                "url": "http://localhost:8025"
            },
            {
                "label": "📂 Logs",
                "items": [
                    {
                        "label": "Open Log Folder",
                        "action": "openfilesystem",
                        "path": "${serverinfo.serverHomeDirectory}/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs"
                    },
                    {
                        "label": "Tail application.log",
                        "action": "runAsync",
                        "command": "tmpfile=$(mktemp -t tail-application).command; printf '#!/bin/zsh\nclear\ntail -n 100 -f \"%s\"\n' '${serverinfo.serverHomeDirectory}/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs/application.log' > \"$tmpfile\"; chmod +x \"$tmpfile\"; open -a Terminal \"$tmpfile\""
                    },
                    {
                        "label": "Tail exception.log",
                        "action": "runAsync",
                        "command": "tmpfile=$(mktemp -t tail-exception).command; printf '#!/bin/zsh\nclear\ntail -n 100 -f \"%s\"\n' '${serverinfo.serverHomeDirectory}/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs/exception.log' > \"$tmpfile\"; chmod +x \"$tmpfile\"; open -a Terminal \"$tmpfile\""
                    },
                    {
                        "label": "Tail mailsent.log",
                        "action": "runAsync",
                        "command": "tmpfile=$(mktemp -t tail-mailsent).command; printf '#!/bin/zsh\nprintf \"\\e]0;Tail mailsent.log\\a\"\nclear\ntail -n 100 -f \"%s\"\n' '${serverinfo.serverHomeDirectory}/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs/mailsent.log' > \"$tmpfile\"; chmod +x \"$tmpfile\"; open -a Terminal \"$tmpfile\""
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
]

Explanation of the tail command

This command creates a temporary shell script, makes it executable, and opens it in Terminal. Reminder: this version is macOS only as written because it uses zsh, mktemp, and open -a Terminal.

"command": "tmpfile=$(mktemp -t tail-mailsent).command; printf '#!/bin/zsh\nprintf \"\\e]0;Tail mailsent.log\\a\"\nclear\ntail -n 100 -f \"%s\"\n' '${serverinfo.serverHomeDirectory}/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs/mailsent.log' > \"$tmpfile\"; chmod +x \"$tmpfile\"; open -a Terminal \"$tmpfile\""

What it does

• mktemp -t tail-mailsent
  • Creates a uniquely named temporary file.
• printf '#!/bin/zsh ...'
  • Writes a small shell script into the temporary file.
• printf "\e]0;Tail mailsent.log\a"
  • Sets the Terminal window title.
• clear
  • Clears the Terminal window before output begins.
• tail -n 100 -f
  • Displays the last 100 lines of the log file and continues following new entries in real time.
• chmod +x
  • Makes the temporary script executable.
• open -a Terminal
  • Opens the script in the macOS Terminal application.

Next Steps

There are all kinds of other tasks that could be added to the tray such as:

• Ping a server
• Flushing DNS
• Open the hosts file to edit
• Open the site’s Git repo

Good luck!

Overview

This article documents how to configure Adobe ColdFusion to use Mailpit for local email testing.

Mailpit captures outbound email locally so messages can be reviewed in a browser without sending real email.

---

Export Existing Mail Settings (Optional)

Before making changes, export the current ColdFusion mail configuration so it can be restored later if needed.

cfconfig export from=server.local to=mailSettings.json includeList=mailservers**

Example exported configuration:

{
    "mailServers": [
        {
            "tls": true,
            "password": "SUPERSECRET",
            "port": 587,
            "username": "USERNAME",
            "ssl": false,
            "smtp": "smtp.mailgun.org"
        }
    ]
}

---

Install Mailpit

Install Mailpit using Homebrew.

brew install mailpit

---

Start Mailpit

Start the Mailpit service.

brew services start mailpit

---

Configure ColdFusion to Use Mailpit

Method 1: Configure with CommandBox

Create a file named mailSettingsMailpit.json.

{
    "mailServers": [
        {
            "tls": false,
            "password": "",
            "port": 1025,
            "username": "",
            "ssl": false,
            "smtp": "127.0.0.1"
        }
    ]
}

Import the Mailpit configuration into ColdFusion.

cfconfig import from=mailSettingsMailpit.json to=server.local

---

Method 2: Configure in ColdFusion Administrator

Navigate to:

ColdFusion Administrator → Server Settings → Mail

Configure the following values:

Mail Server: 127.0.0.1
Server Port: 1025
Username: blank
Password: blank
Use TLS: unchecked
Use SSL: unchecked

---

Test Email Delivery

Create a .cfm test page.

<cfscript>
    recipientCount = 5;

    for (i = 1; i <= recipientCount; i++) {

        recipient = "foo#i#@bar.com";

        cfmail(
            to = recipient,
            from = "[email protected]",
            subject = "Mailpit Test",
            type = "html"
        ) {

            writeOutput("
                <h1>Hello from ColdFusion</h1>
                <p>
                    It is #dateFormat(now(), 'mm/dd/yyyy')# at
                    #dateTimeFormat(now(), 'hh:mm:ss tt')#.
                    This should show up in Mailpit.
                </p>
            ");
        }

        sleep(3000);

        writeOutput("<p>Mail sent.</p>");
    }

    writeOutput('<p><a href="#cgi.script_name#">Run again</a></p>');
</cfscript>

---

Verify Email Delivery

Open the Mailpit web interface:

http://localhost:8025

The test emails should appear in the Mailpit inbox.

---

Restore Original Mail Settings (Optional)

Restore the original ColdFusion mail configuration.

cfconfig import from=mailSettings.json to=server.local

Restart ColdFusion after restoring the configuration if required.

---

Stop Mailpit

Stop the Mailpit service.

brew services stop mailpit