Comments on: Correct Way to Send Out Group Emails

By: Tom Saxton

Tom Saxton — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:28:47 +0000

The best way to send out group emails is to send an individual message to each person. I wrote a custom scripting solution to do with my email client, but I’ll get there are plenty of free/cheap solutions available.

This solves all of the problems: doesn’t expose email addresses to the entire list, doesn’t trip spam filters, and doesn’t open the Reply All trap.

By: junebloom

junebloom — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:44:37 +0000

I have a problem with people using the To: line to sent out group emails. I dont appreciate them using this and then everyone else having my emial that should be private. and now getting cluttered with unwanted email from people I dont give my address to. This is more happening with my children’s teachers sending out notices. I dont even get this from my friends or co-workers. How can I nicely tell these teachers the proper netiquette of sending emails. When did teachers/school system get so lazy and so impersonal that they can not pick up the phone or request a meeting.

By: J Baker

J Baker — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:34:32 +0000

I recently had problems with my email. It is now working. However, sometimes when I send BCC it still appears in everyone’s email and sometimes it does not.
Anyone have any solutions? J

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:25:33 +0000

@Celinda – Is it possible that some of the addresses you sent emails to were actually groups or aliases for other people? That would explain what you are describing.

By: Celinda Scott

Celinda Scott — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:59:42 +0000

I bcc’d an e-mail to a specific group twice (a month apart), double
checked to make sure the addresses were actually all in the group,
but the message went to members of a group I had not specified in addition to the group I intended to send the message to. Has anyone else had trouble with this?

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:27:52 +0000

@Peggy - You could try using something like iContact to manage your list. That would give people the ability to opt out on their own. Also there use to be a way you could do a "merge to email" with Outlook where it would send each email out individually. I use a program called Contactizer on OS X to do that sometimes.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:57:59 +0000

My group now has about 100 addresses. Each month I have to send an e-mail to all recepients. Yahoo or G-mail will not allow me to send to a group this size. I have to break down the distribution list to no more than 12 addresses, or it will NOT GO!
I’ve tried using the bcc to list my names, or even in the “to” box. Then, after breaking it down, I have to get through the spam security…trying to decipher what word is written!!! It is driving me crazy. any suggestions?

By: Mike Berta

Mike Berta — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:26:05 +0000

Let’s add a quick note for those that forget these simple steps. If someone has decided to not be net-friendly and puts everyone in the To: or Cc: lines and you have something to say to the sender…hit REPLY not REPLY ALL.

Nothing is more disruptive than having a flood of REPLY ALL messages because the sender elected to not use the proper BCC format.

One other thing. If you are worried that someone won’t know what groups you send a work message out (with the BCC) to, then put it in the opening of the message. For example, “This sent to IT, Mail Room, Operations Management”

Thanks for the tip.

Mike

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:22:30 +0000

@Stevenson & Danny – I agree that sending out messages in this way may trigger some spam filters. This is particularly true if you are sending messages to people you don’t normally correspond with. However, my experience has been good when I’m emailing to people with whom I normally exchange messages. Maybe this is because I’m in their address book or the spam filter is using past emails to determine what future ones will look like.

If I’m sending something that is extremely vital, I’m probably going to follow up with a phone call or ask for confirmation anyway.

@Jeff – That is one of my pet peeves as well–especially in some email programs where forwards actually show up as a message inside the message instead of just being indented.

By: Jeff B

Jeff B — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:22:55 +0000

Another area I dislike in sending out group emails is when people do not remove all the messages header details. Some people are great at BCC a list of people but forget to remove the header information from when they hit Forward. That way the other people’s mistakes are not showing up.

Thanks for the post.

By: Neal

Neal — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:00:03 +0000

Yes this is a great tip. Another good tip is creating “Groups” within your email program and putting the group in the BCC field. This way you don’t have to enter each name each time you wanna send out a group email.

By: Manny

Manny — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:32:34 +0000

Danny, and why do you think gmail put this filter in place to start with? due to so many people sending so many emails in the to field, which made it almost impossible to discriminate real from fake.

Let’s recall OUR inbox as property, do not let your email address on the loose

By: Danny

Danny — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:32:50 +0000

The only issue with this lies in gmail itself. In most cases, messages are marked as “spam” if the sender’s address is not in the “to:” field.
According to the help file, this can be resolved if your address is in the recipient’s address book, but my experience has shown that this isn’t always true.
So I guess this is just a grain of salt type of comment…

By: K. T. Stevenson

K. T. Stevenson — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:25:02 +0000

I have a love/hate relationship with this technique. While it is wonderful for protecting email addresses and preventing reply-all bombs, it also increases the possibility of tripping spam filters. My spam filters dramatically lower the priority of messages where I don’t appear in the “To:” or “Cc:” fields. That said, anything that is being mass mailed to a lot of people probably deserves the lower classification!