Notifications
Introduction
In addition to support for sending email, Laravel provides support for sending notifications across a variety of delivery channels, including email, SMS (via Vonage, formerly known as Nexmo), and Slack. In addition, a variety of community built notification channels have been created to send notifications over dozens of different channels! Notifications may also be stored in a database so they may be displayed in your web interface.
Typically, notifications should be short, informational messages that notify users of something that occurred in your application. For example, if you are writing a billing application, you might send an "Invoice Paid" notification to your users via the email and SMS channels.
Generating Notifications
In Laravel, each notification is represented by a single class that is typically stored in the app/Notifications
directory. Don't worry if you don't see this directory in your application - it will be created for you when you run the make:notification
Artisan command:
php artisan make:notification InvoicePaid
This command will place a fresh notification class in your app/Notifications
directory. Each notification class contains a via
method and a variable number of message building methods, such as toMail
or toDatabase
, that convert the notification to a message tailored for that particular channel.
Sending Notifications
Using the Notifiable Trait
Notifications may be sent in two ways: using the notify
method of the Notifiable
trait or using the Notification
facade. The Notifiable
trait is included on your application's App\Models\User
model by default:
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
class User extends Authenticatable
{
use Notifiable;
}
The notify
method that is provided by this trait expects to receive a notification instance:
use App\Notifications\InvoicePaid;
$user->notify(new InvoicePaid($invoice));
Remember, you may use the Notifiable
trait on any of your models. You are not limited to only including it on your User
model.
Using the Notification Facade
Alternatively, you may send notifications via the Notification
facade. This approach is useful when you need to send a notification to multiple notifiable entities such as a collection of users. To send notifications using the facade, pass all of the notifiable entities and the notification instance to the send
method:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Notification;
Notification::send($users, new InvoicePaid($invoice));
You can also send notifications immediately using the sendNow
method. This method will send the notification immediately even if the notification implements the ShouldQueue
interface:
Notification::sendNow($developers, new DeploymentCompleted($deployment));
Specifying Delivery Channels
Every notification class has a via
method that determines on which channels the notification will be delivered. Notifications may be sent on the mail
, database
, broadcast
, vonage
, and slack
channels.
If you would like to use other delivery channels such as Telegram or Pusher, check out the community driven Laravel Notification Channels website.
The via
method receives a $notifiable
instance, which will be an instance of the class to which the notification is being sent. You may use $notifiable
to determine which channels the notification should be delivered on:
/**
* Get the notification's delivery channels.
*
* @return array<int, string>
*/
public function via(object $notifiable): array
{
return $notifiable->prefers_sms ? ['vonage'] : ['mail', 'database'];
}
Queueing Notifications
Before queueing notifications you should configure your queue and start a worker.
Sending notifications can take time, especially if the channel needs to make an external API call to deliver the notification. To speed up your application's response time, let your notification be queued by adding the ShouldQueue
interface and Queueable
trait to your class. The interface and trait are already imported for all notifications generated using the make:notification
command, so you may immediately add them to your notification class:
<?php
namespace App\Notifications;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notification;
class InvoicePaid extends Notification implements ShouldQueue
{
use Queueable;
// ...
}
Once the ShouldQueue
interface has been added to your notification, you may send the notification like normal. Laravel will detect the ShouldQueue
interface on the class and automatically queue the delivery of the notification:
$user->notify(new InvoicePaid($invoice));
When queueing notifications, a queued job will be created for each recipient and channel combination. For example, six jobs will be dispatched to the queue if your notification has three recipients and two channels.
Delaying Notifications
If you would like to delay the delivery of the notification, you may chain the delay
method onto your notification instantiation:
$delay = now()->addMinutes(10);
$user->notify((new InvoicePaid($invoice))->delay($delay));
You may pass an array to the delay
method to specify the delay amount for specific channels:
$user->notify((new InvoicePaid($invoice))->delay([
'mail' => now()->addMinutes(5),
'sms' => now()->addMinutes(10),
]));
Alternatively, you may define a withDelay
method on the notification class itself. The withDelay
method should return an array of channel names and delay values:
/**
* Determine the notification's delivery delay.
*
* @return array<string, \Illuminate\Support\Carbon>
*/
public function withDelay(object $notifiable): array
{
return [
'mail' => now()->addMinutes(5),
'sms' => now()->addMinutes(10),
];
}
Customizing the Notification Queue Connection
By default, queued notifications will be queued using your application's default queue connection. If you would like to specify a different connection that should be used for a particular notification, you may call the onConnection
method from your notification's constructor:
<?php
namespace App\Notifications;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notification;
class InvoicePaid extends Notification implements ShouldQueue
{
use Queueable;
/**
* Create a new notification instance.
*/
public function __construct()
{
$this->onConnection('redis');
}
}
Or, if you would like to specify a specific queue connection that should be used for each notification channel supported by the notification, you may define a viaConnections
method on your notification. This method should return an array of channel name / queue connection name pairs:
/**
* Determine which connections should be used for each notification channel.
*
* @return array<string, string>
*/
public function viaConnections(): array
{
return [
'mail' => 'redis',
'database' => 'sync',
];
}
Customizing Notification Channel Queues
If you would like to specify a specific queue that should be used for each notification channel supported by the notification, you may define a viaQueues
method on your notification. This method should return an array of channel name / queue name pairs:
/**
* Determine which queues should be used for each notification channel.
*
* @return array<string, string>
*/
public function viaQueues(): array
{
return [
'mail' => 'mail-queue',
'slack' => 'slack-queue',
];
}
Queued Notification Middleware
Queued notifications may define middleware just like queued jobs. To get started, define a middleware
method on your notification class. The middleware
method will receive $notifiable
and $channel
variables, which allow you to customize the returned middleware based on the notification's destination:
use Illuminate\Queue\Middleware\RateLimited;
/**
* Get the middleware the notification job should pass through.
*
* @return array<int, object>
*/
public function middleware(object $notifiable, string $channel)
{
return match ($channel) {
'email' => [new RateLimited('postmark')],
'slack' => [new RateLimited('slack')],
default => [],
};
}
Queued Notifications and Database Transactions
When queued notifications are dispatched within database transactions, they may be processed by the queue before the database transaction has committed. When this happens, any updates you have made to models or database records during the database transaction may not yet be reflected in the database. In addition, any models or database records created within the transaction may not exist in the database. If your notification depends on these models, unexpected errors can occur when the job that sends the queued notification is processed.
If your queue connection's after_commit
configuration option is set to false
, you may still indicate that a particular queued notification should be dispatched after all open database transactions have been committed by calling the afterCommit
method when sending the notification:
use App\Notifications\InvoicePaid;
$user->notify((new InvoicePaid($invoice))->afterCommit());
Alternatively, you may call the afterCommit
method from your notification's constructor:
<?php
namespace App\Notifications;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notification;
class InvoicePaid extends Notification implements ShouldQueue
{
use Queueable;
/**
* Create a new notification instance.
*/
public function __construct()
{
$this->afterCommit();
}
}
To learn more about working around these issues, please review the documentation regarding queued jobs and database transactions.
Determining if a Queued Notification Should Be Sent
After a queued notification has been dispatched for the queue for background processing, it will typically be accepted by a queue worker and sent to its intended recipient.
However, if you would like to make the final determination on whether the queued notification should be sent after it is being processed by a queue worker, you may define a shouldSend
method on the notification class. If this method returns false
, the notification will not be sent:
/**
* Determine if the notification should be sent.
*/
public function shouldSend(object $notifiable, string $channel): bool
{
return $this->invoice->isPaid();
}
On-Demand Notifications
Sometimes you may need to send a notification to someone who is not stored as a "user" of your application. Using the Notification
facade's route
method, you may specify ad-hoc notification routing information before sending the notification:
use Illuminate\Broadcasting\Channel;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Notification;
Notification::route('mail', 'taylor@example.com')
->route('vonage', '5555555555')
->route('slack', '#slack-channel')
->route('broadcast', [new Channel('channel-name')])
->notify(new InvoicePaid($invoice));
If you would like to provide the recipient's name when sending an on-demand notification to the mail
route, you may provide an array that contains the email address as the key and the name as the value of the first element in the array:
Notification::route('mail', [
'barrett@example.com' => 'Barrett Blair',
])->notify(new InvoicePaid($invoice));
Using the routes
method, you may provide ad-hoc routing information for multiple notification channels at once:
Notification::routes([
'mail' => ['barrett@example.com' => 'Barrett Blair'],
'vonage' => '5555555555',
])->notify(new InvoicePaid($invoice));
Mail Notifications
Formatting Mail Messages
If a notification supports being sent as an email, you should define a toMail
method on the notification class. This method will receive a $notifiable
entity and should return an Illuminate\Notifications\Messages\MailMessage
instance.
The MailMessage
class contains a few simple methods to help you build transactional email messages. Mail messages may contain lines of text as well as a "call to action". Let's take a look at an example toMail
method:
/**
* Get the mail representation of the notification.
*/
public function toMail(object $notifiable): MailMessage
{
$url = url('/invoice/'.$this->invoice->id);
return (new MailMessage)
->greeting('Hello!')
->line('One of your invoices has been paid!')
->lineIf($this->amount > 0, "Amount paid: {$this->amount}")
->action('View Invoice', $url)
->line('Thank you for using our application!');
}
Note we are using $this->invoice->id
in our toMail
method. You may pass any data your notification needs to generate its message into the notification's constructor.
In this example, we register a greeting, a line of text, a call to action, and then another line of text. These methods provided by the MailMessage
object make it simple and fast to format small transactional emails. The mail channel will then translate the message components into a beautiful, responsive HTML email template with a plain-text counterpart. Here is an example of an email generated by the mail
channel:
When sending mail notifications, be sure to set the name
configuration option in your config/app.php
configuration file. This value will be used in the header and footer of your mail notification messages.
Error Messages
Some notifications inform users of errors, such as a failed invoice payment. You may indicate that a mail message is regarding an error by calling the error
method when building your message. When using the error
method on a mail message, the call to action button will be red instead of black:
/**
* Get the mail representation of the notification.
*/
public function toMail(object $notifiable): MailMessage
{
return (new MailMessage)
->error()
->subject('Invoice Payment Failed')
->line('...');
}