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How Do I Mail Merge In Mail?

To easily personalize emails I would like to mail merge some information. I currently have a selection of emails in Template but have to personalize them by hand – a tad tedious. Hope you can help maybe with a script?
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Marianne Guillois

Comments: 3 Responses to “How Do I Mail Merge In Mail?”

    5 years ago

    The key question is: how many email messages are we talking about here, and for what purpose?

    A big reason this is not easy to do is that if it were, it would be a great tool for spammers. If it were easy to send out mass emails from personal email accounts on personal computers, there would be even more spam.

    And even if it were easy to do on your Mac, your email provider may not like it. They may have limits on how many messages you can send before your account is flagged.

    And even if your email provider doesn't flag your account, other email providers could see the mass email spreading over the Internet and flag your email address and even your provider as a spammer.

    So, it is dangerous to send out a mass email for many reasons, whether you "mail merge" to personalize them or not.

    So if you are talking about 20 emails once a year, then it is probably no big deal. But anything around 100 or more, or several times a year, you should really consider using an email service to do this: Aweber (best), Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc. These providers screen their clients to prevent spam and have a reputation with email services. And you wouldn't be sending "from" your personal email account. And they all include options that would allow you to customize the messages.

    Otherwise, you can use scripts to do something like Mail Merge -- although that term usually applies to printed messages like memos that go into physical inboxes in a large office, for instance. So if you search "automator mail merge" a lot of what you see involves printing or PDFs, not email.

    Marianne Guillois
    5 years ago

    I am talking about 200 emails/year but spread throughout the year as they are only being sent when we receive a payment towards entry fee in our event. So currently I have set a library of emails in Template which I update manually with the amount first name, received, event reference number and outstanding balance.
    I would be great if I could compile a spreadsheet every week with all the info and do a mail merge email on Friday instead of doing it on a per person per day basis. Thank you

    5 years ago

    Marianne: I would look for a better way. If you are taking payments and scheduling events, is there a system you are already using for that? If so, there should be a way to send notifications or receipts through that system. Otherwise, you may be stuck in the middle with too small of a need to use such a system, but just big enough to do it all by manually. You could probably set up your own system with a series of complex scripts or a web service, but at 200/year it could be not worth the effort.

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