How do I send email to a lot of people at once?

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Summary: It's very tempting to build a group or list in your email program to send mail to them all at once. But if the group is big, it probably won't work.

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Without knowing more, it's hard to say exactly why it failed, but I'm not at all surprised that it did.

The approach that you took is most certainly not one that I would recommend, for exactly that reason. There are alternatives, but they do require a little work.

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First, realize that these two things are VERY different:

• Sending 1,200 individual emails

• Sending one email with 1,200 recipients

By creating a group in your email program, and then sending to that group, you're creating a single email with 1,200 recipients.

And you know what that looks like?

Spam.

Because of spam most email providers put a limit on the number of recipients you can have on a single email message. Without seeing the error message you got, or knowing who your email provider is, I can't say for sure that this is the problem you experienced, or what the limit might be. However, if I had to bet money, exceeding that limit is where I'd place my bet.

That's probably why you only got once error message - you only sent one piece of email. Your mail provider returned the error before even trying to send it on to all the people you had listed.

Most email programs, and certainly Outlook Express, do not have the ability to create a mailing list of 1,200 recipients, and then send a message as 1,200 individual messages. That's not what they were designed for.

As I see it, you have essentially two options:

• Figure out what the limit is, divide your list into groups of no more than that limit, and send the message separately to each group. If your email provider's limit is, for example, 10, then to send to 1,200 people you'd have to send 120 batches of 10.

• Use a true mailing list service. This gets complicated, since you've already collected the 1,200 email addresses. Ideally you might use a free service such as Yahoo Groups, or many of the mailing list services targeted at on-line marketers. The problem is that most, or at least the most reputable ones, will require that each email address be confirmed by the recipient before they'll send anything to it. Why? Once again, spam.

Without knowing more about your specific situation, my general recommendation would be to get your 1,200 people to join a Yahoo group. They have to join, but once they're on, then a) you won't be accused of spamming, and b) you'll know that they actually want to get whatever it is you're sending.

If you absolutely cannot ask them to take action to "sign up" for your email, then you should check with your ISP for mailing solutions, or look for mailing list providers that don't require double opt in. You do run the risk of being labeled a spammer, though, if you go this route.

Or, of course, you could send a lot of individual emails, by hand.

Though you'll still run the risk of being called a spammer.

Related:

• Ask Leo! - How do I set up an email newsleter?

• Ask Leo! - Why am I not getting all messages sent to the mailing list I'm on?

Article C2912 - January 27, 2007