How to Use Laravel Queues for Faster Background Tasks

In this article , we will explore how Laravel queues work.

With Laravel queues, you can efficiently handle tasks in the background, no matter which version of Laravel you are using - be it Laravel 8, Laravel 9, Laravel 10, or the latest Laravel 11.By using queues, you can free up your website's resources and make it faster by moving time-consuming jobs to the background.Throughout this guide, we will explain from basics to advance of Laravel queues.

Key Components of Laravel Queues

Job Classes: These classes represent the tasks that need to be performed asynchronously.

Queue Drivers: Laravel supports a variety of queue drivers like database, Redis, Beanstalkd, SQS, etc.

Queue Workers: These are processes that run in the background to process queued jobs.

Example

You can create a new job class using the Artisan command:

php artisan make:job SendEmail

Configuring the Queue Driver

You need to set up your queue driver in the config/queue.php file.

'default' => env('QUEUE_CONNECTION', 'database'),

And after setting up the queue driver run the necessary migrations to create the jobs table:

php artisan queue:table php artisan migrate

In our job we define the logic for sending an email:

namespace App\Jobs; use App\Mail\WelcomeMail; use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable; use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue; use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable; use Illuminate\Queue\InteractsWithQueue; use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels; use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail; class SendEmail implements ShouldQueue { use Dispatchable, InteractsWithQueue, Queueable, SerializesModels; protected $email; public function __construct($email) { $this->tries = 3; $this->email = $email; } public function handle() { Mail::to($this->email)->send(new WelcomeMail()); } }

REQUIRED : Make sure your class implements ShouldQueue

Dispatching the Job

public function sendWelcomeEmail(Request $request) { $email = $request->input('email'); SendEmail::dispatch($email); }

Running the Queue Worker

To start processing jobs, you need to run the queue worker:

php artisan queue:work

Advanced Tips

Delayed Jobs: You can delay a job to be executed after a certain time period using the delay method.

SendEmail::dispatch($email)->delay(now()->addMinutes(10));

Failed Jobs: You can handle failed jobs by defining a failed method in your job class or using Laravel's built-in failed job.

php artisan queue:failed-table php artisan migrate

Batch Processing: Laravel provides a way to handle batch jobs, allowing you to dispatch multiple jobs at once.

use Illuminate\Bus\Batch; use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Bus; $batch = Bus::batch([ new SendEmail($email1), new SendEmail($email2), ])->then(function (Batch $batch) { // All jobs completed successfully })->catch(function (Batch $batch, Throwable $e) { // First batch job failure detected })->finally(function (Batch $batch) { // The batch has finished executing })->dispatch();