Unable to Send TLS Email: Resolving Laravel Certificate Verification Errors

Despite having less secure Gmail settings enabled and configuring Laravel's .env file correctly, you encounter certificate verification failures when sending TLS emails. The error messages indicate that the SSL operation is failing and the server certificate cannot be verified.

To address this issue, consider the following steps if your operating system doesn't automatically manage your trusted certificate store:

1. Download the cURL cacert.pem certificate bundle.
2. Place the cacert.pem bundle in a suitable location. Add any self-signed certificates you need to accept to the end of the file if applicable.

3. Edit php.ini to reference the cacert.pem file location:

   curl.cainfo = D:/Servers/php/sslfiles/cacert.pem
   openssl.cafile = D:/Servers/php/sslfiles/cacert.pem

4. Restart your PHP-FPM or web server.

Once implemented, these steps should resolve the certificate verification errors and allow you to successfully send TLS emails.