Laravel Mail Log Channel

Receive detailed error emails from your Laravel application. Plug it into Laravel's logging stack and get notified when things break — with full context, stack trace, SQL queries, and more.

📸 Example email

screenshot

Features

Rich error emails — structured HTML with clear, readable sections
Execution context — HTTP request (method, URL, route, controller, authenticated user), Artisan command, or Queue job
Environment info — app environment, PHP/Laravel versions, server hostname, peak memory, execution time
Code snippet — source code around the error line, highlighted
Smart stack trace — application frames expanded, vendor frames collapsed
SQL queries — last 10 queries with bindings and execution time
Request payload — optional, redacted capture of the incoming request body and uploaded files
Throttling — identical errors are deduplicated to avoid inbox flooding
Level-based routing — send to different recipients based on log level, suppress specific levels
Editor links — clickable file paths that open in your IDE
Previous exceptions — full chain display
Additional context — from Exception::context() and log record context
Test command — php artisan mail-log:test to verify your setup

Installation

composer require shaffe/laravel-mail-log-channel

The package auto-registers its service provider.

Compatibility

| Laravel | Package | |:-------------------|:--------| | 10, 11, 12, 13 | ^3.0 | | 5.6 – 13 | ^2.0 | | 5.6 | ^1.0 |

Quick Start

Add a mail channel to config/logging.php and include it in your stack:

'channels' => [
    'stack' => [
        'driver' => 'stack',
        'channels' => ['daily', 'mail'],
    ],

    'mail' => [
        'driver' => 'mail',
        'level' => env('LOG_MAIL_LEVEL', 'error'),
        'to' => env('LOG_MAIL_ADDRESS'),
    ],
],

Add the recipient to your .env:

[email protected]

That's it. Unhandled exceptions at or above the configured level will now arrive in your inbox.

Configuration Reference

All options with their defaults:

'mail' => [
    'driver' => 'mail',
    'level' => 'error',

    // Recipients (see formats below)
    'to' => env('LOG_MAIL_ADDRESS'),

    // Sender (defaults to mail.from config)
    'from' => [
        'address' => env('LOG_MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS'),
        'name' => env('LOG_MAIL_FROM_NAME', 'Errors'),
    ],

    // Subject line pattern
    // Placeholders: %level_name%, %message%, %env%, %context%, %app_name%, %channel%, %datetime%
    'subject_format' => '[%level_name%] [%env%] %context% — %message%',

    // Throttle identical errors (seconds). Set to 0 or false to disable.
    'throttle' => 60,

    // Cache store for throttle state (null = default store)
    'throttle_cache_store' => null,

    // Include last N SQL queries in the email
    'log_queries' => true,

    // Maximum number of SQL queries to include (default: 10)
    'query_limit' => 10,

    // Include the incoming request payload (opt-in, off by default).
    // Sensitive fields (passwords, tokens, card data) are always redacted.
    'log_request_payload' => false,

    // Extra field names to redact, merged with the built-in defaults.
    'redact_keys' => [],

    // Truncate scalar values longer than this many characters.
    'payload_max_value_length' => 500,

    // Maximum number of fields kept per array level.
    'payload_max_keys' => 50,

    // Collapse vendor frames in stack trace
    'collapse_vendor_frames' => true,

    // Custom Mailable class (receives $content and $records)
    // 'mailable' => \App\Mail\CustomLogMail::class,
],

Recipient Formats

The to option accepts several formats:

// Simple string
'to' => '[email protected]',

// Multiple addresses
'to' => ['[email protected]', '[email protected]'],

// With names
'to' => ['[email protected]' => 'Dev Team'],

// Structured
'to' => [
    ['address' => '[email protected]', 'name' => 'Dev Team'],
    ['address' => '[email protected]', 'name' => 'Ops'],
],

Level-Based Routing

Route error emails to different recipients based on log level. Levels without a configured recipient (and no default) won't send any email.

'to' => [
    'default' => '[email protected]',       // fallback for levels not listed
    'critical' => '[email protected]',   // critical & emergency → on-call
    'emergency' => [
        ['address' => '[email protected]', 'name' => 'On-Call'],
        ['address' => '[email protected]', 'name' => 'CTO'],
    ],
    'debug' => null,                       // explicitly suppress debug emails
    'info' => '',                          // same — no email for info
],

Level keys also accept Monolog Level enum values or their numeric equivalents:

use Monolog\Level;

'to' => [
    'default' => '[email protected]',
    Level::Critical->value => '[email protected]',  // 500
    'warning' => '[email protected]',                  // string works too
    Level::Debug->value => null,                     // 100 — suppressed
],

Rules:

If a level has recipients → email is sent to those recipients.
If a level is not listed → falls back to default.
If a level is explicitly set to null, '', or false → no email is sent, even if default exists.
If a level is not listed and there is no default → no email is sent.
This is fully backward-compatible: a plain string or simple array to works exactly as before.

Each level value accepts the same formats as the standard to option (string, array of strings, named array, structured array).

Throttling

Identical errors are automatically deduplicated to prevent inbox flooding. When the same error occurs multiple times within the throttle window, only the first occurrence sends an email.

Enabled by default with a 60-second window.

Fingerprinting

Each log record gets a fingerprint to determine uniqueness:

| Record type | Fingerprint components | |:------------|:-----------------------| | Exception | class + code + message + file + line | | Plain message | channel + level + message |

Suppressed Occurrences Counter

When an error is throttled and then reappears after the window expires, the next email includes a notice indicating how many times the error has occurred since it first appeared, along with the timestamp of the first occurrence.

For example: "⚠️ This error has occurred 47 times since 15 Mar 2025 14:30:00 UTC."

This gives you immediate visibility into the scale of a recurring issue without flooding your inbox.

Configuration

// Throttle window in seconds (default: 60)
'throttle' => 60,

// Disable throttling
'throttle' => 0,

// Use a specific cache store (useful for multi-server setups)
'throttle_cache_store' => 'redis',

Good to Know

Messages with dynamic content (e.g. "User 42 not found") produce distinct fingerprints — they won't be incorrectly grouped together.
For multi-server deployments, use a shared cache store (Redis, Memcached) so throttling works across all instances.

SQL Query Logging

The last N SQL queries leading up to the error are included in the email, with bindings and execution time. This helps understand the database state at the time of failure.

// Number of queries to keep (default: 10)
'query_limit' => 10,

// Disable SQL query logging entirely
'log_queries' => false,

[!WARNING] Query bindings are shown as-is and are not redacted. This is intentional: the whole point of query logging is to reproduce the failing query, and masking the values would defeat it. As a result, a query such as insert into users (email, password) values (?, ?) will expose its bound values in the email.

Treat error emails as confidential: send them to a controlled, access-restricted inbox, and set 'log_queries' => false if your threat model can't accommodate this. The same applies to the request payload and context sections — redaction there is best-effort on known field names only.

Request Payload

Capture the incoming request body in the error email to help reproduce HTTP failures. Disabled by default because request data is sensitive.

Enable it per channel:

'log_request_payload' => true,

The payload is read with Laravel's request->all(), so it covers both form (application/x-www-form-urlencoded, multipart/form-data) and JSON requests. Nothing is captured on the console or when no request is available.

Redaction

Sensitive fields are always redacted, recursively and case-insensitively. Their keys remain visible as [REDACTED] so you can tell which fields were present without seeing their values.

The built-in list covers:

| Category | Fields | |:---------|:-------| | Auth / secrets | password, password_confirmation, current_password, new_password, secret, token, _token, access_token, refresh_token, api_key, apikey, api_token, authorization, client_secret | | Card / PCI | card_number, cardnumber, card_no, cc_number, ccnumber, cc_num, cvc, cvv, cvv2, cvc2, card_cvc, card_cvv, security_code, exp_month, exp_year, expiry, expiration, expiration_date, exp_date | | Stripe | stripe_token, stripetoken, payment_method, payment_intent, setup_intent | | Braintree / PayPal | payment_method_nonce, nonce | | Bank details | iban, bic, account_number, routing_number, sort_code |

Add your own field names — they are merged with the defaults, never replacing them:

'redact_keys' => ['ssn', 'national_id'],

Redacted fields remain visible in the email as [REDACTED] so you can see which fields were submitted without exposing their values.

Size limits

To keep emails readable and within SMTP limits, the payload is bounded:

// Truncate any scalar value longer than this (characters).
// Truncated values are annotated, e.g. "abc… [1200 chars total]".
'payload_max_value_length' => 500,

// Keep at most this many fields per array level.
// Omitted fields are reported as "+ N more fields omitted".
'payload_max_keys' => 50,

Uploaded files

Files are described, never dumped — only the original name, MIME type, and size are included. File contents are never read or attached.

Editor Links

File paths in error emails are clickable when app.editor is configured. Clicking opens the file at the correct line in your IDE.

// config/app.php
'editor' => 'phpstorm',

Or via .env:

APP_EDITOR=phpstorm

Examples: phpstorm, vscode, vscode-insiders, cursor, sublime, kiro, nova, idea.

Custom URL scheme:

'editor' => [
    'href' => 'custom://open?file={file}&line={line}',
],

Remote path remapping (when server paths differ from local):

'editor' => [
    'name' => 'phpstorm',
    'base_path' => '/local/path/to/project',
],

Environment Info

Each error email includes badges showing the application environment, PHP and Laravel versions, server hostname, peak memory usage, and execution time (time elapsed since LARAVEL_START).

This helps identify errors related to resource exhaustion or slow requests at a glance.

Testing Your Configuration

Verify that your mail log channel is properly configured by sending a test email:

php artisan mail-log:test

Options:

# Test with a specific log level
php artisan mail-log:test --level=critical

# Test a specific channel name
php artisan mail-log:test --channel=mail

This sends a fake exception through the configured channel so you can confirm recipients, SMTP settings, and throttle behavior without waiting for a real error.

Upgrading

v2 → v3

Requires PHP 8.1+ and Laravel 10+
Complete redesign of the email HTML output
HtmlFormatter::addRow() has been removed
Configuration API is unchanged — no config migration needed

If you extended HtmlFormatter or parsed the HTML output, review the new format.

Credits

This package is a fork of laravel-log-mailer by Steve Porter.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.