Queues in Laravel: Everything You Need to Know

In modern web applications, performance and responsiveness are critical. Users expect fast-loading pages and instant feedback. However, some tasks — like sending emails, processing images, or generating reports — can take a long time to complete. If these tasks are executed during a request-response cycle, they can slow down your application.

This is where queues come in. Laravel queues provide a way to defer time-consuming tasks, allowing your application to respond faster while handling heavy tasks in the background.

What is a Queue?

A queue is a data structure used to store tasks that need to be processed. Think of it like a line at a bank — the first person to join the line is the first to be served. This is called FIFO (First In, First Out).

In Laravel, a queue allows you to:

• Push a task into a queue.
• Process the task asynchronously in the background.
• Avoid delaying the user’s request.

Why Use Queues?

Here are some scenarios where queues are beneficial:

1. Email Sending
   Sending emails can take several seconds. By using queues, emails are sent in the background, making the user experience smoother.
2. Notification Processing
   Push notifications or SMS alerts can be queued to avoid slowing down the request cycle.
3. Heavy Computation Tasks
   Tasks like image or video processing, report generation, or file uploads can be deferred to a queue worker.
4. Third-Party API Calls
   If you interact with APIs that have high latency, you can offload requests to a queue.

How Laravel Queues Work

Laravel provides a unified API across different queue backends. The workflow generally looks like this:

1. Job Creation – A job represents a task to be processed (e.g., send an email).
2. Push to Queue – Laravel pushes the job onto a queue driver (database, Redis, SQS, etc.).
3. Queue Worker – A worker process listens for jobs and executes them.
4. Job Processing – Once completed, the job is removed from the queue.

Supported Queue Drivers

Laravel supports several queue backends:

You can configure the queue driver in the .env file:

QUEUE_CONNECTION=database

Creating a Job

Laravel jobs encapsulate tasks you want to run in the background. You can generate a job using Artisan:

php artisan make:job SendWelcomeEmail

This generates a file in app/Jobs/SendWelcomeEmail.php:

namespace App\Jobs;

use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Queue\InteractsWithQueue;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use App\Mail\WelcomeEmail;
use Mail;

class SendWelcomeEmail implements ShouldQueue
{
    use Dispatchable, InteractsWithQueue, Queueable, SerializesModels;

    protected $user;

    public function __construct($user)
    {
        $this->user = $user;
    }

    public function handle()
    {
        Mail::to($this->user->email)->send(new WelcomeEmail($this->user));
    }
}

Dispatching a Job

You can dispatch a job to a queue using the dispatch() helper:

use App\Jobs\SendWelcomeEmail;

$user = User::find(1);
SendWelcomeEmail::dispatch($user);

This pushes the job onto the queue. Laravel will process it in the background.

Running Queue Workers

To process queued jobs, you need to start a queue worker:

php artisan queue:work

For long-running production workers, you may want to use supervisor to keep workers alive.

You can also process a single job and exit:

php artisan queue:listen

Delayed Jobs

Laravel allows you to delay job execution:

SendWelcomeEmail::dispatch($user)->delay(now()->addMinutes(10));

This will execute the job 10 minutes later.

Failed Jobs

Sometimes jobs fail due to errors. Laravel can keep track of failed jobs. To set this up, you need a table:

php artisan queue:failed-table
php artisan migrate

You can view failed jobs:

php artisan queue:failed

Retry failed jobs:

php artisan queue:retry all

Queues with Different Priorities

Laravel allows you to define multiple queues with different priorities. Example:

SendWelcomeEmail::dispatch($user)->onQueue('emails');

Workers can be configured to process certain queues first:

php artisan queue:work --queue=high,default,low

Tips for Using Laravel Queues

1. Use Jobs for Single Responsibility – Each job should handle a single task.
2. Keep Jobs Idempotent – Jobs should be safe to retry without side effects.
3. Monitor Queues – Use Laravel Horizon for monitoring Redis queues.
4. Handle Failures Gracefully – Always handle exceptions in handle() method.

Conclusion

Laravel queues are a powerful way to handle long-running tasks asynchronously. By offloading tasks to queues, you can:

• Improve user experience
• Handle heavy tasks efficiently
• Scale your application easily

Whether it’s sending emails, processing reports, or interacting with APIs, queues ensure your application stays fast and responsive.