Happy New Year!
While this tip isn't my own, it still seems as though it will be very helpful. I know that I do a lot of development locally where I don't have an SMTP server setup. This tip, courtsey of .NET Tip of the Day, really will eliminate that problem and allow you to work with email without the headaches.
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Testing code that sends email has always been a pain. You had to set
up a SMTP service just to test that your .NET application sends the
e-mail correctly.
However, there is a way to send e-mails with no SMTP server set up.
Just configure your .NET application to drop e-mails into a specified
folder instead of sending them via SMTP server:
<system.net>
<mailSettings>
<smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
<specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="c:\Test\" />
</smtp>
</mailSettings>
</system.net>
This will instruct SmtpClient class to generate mail message, save it as .eml file and drop it into c:\Test\ folder.