How to Send Mass Emails in Gmail

Sending bulk emails comes with certain restrictions.

But, that doesn’t mean that sending mass emails in Gmail is impossible.

Here’s how to send mass emails in Gmail, what’s the best way to do it, and how to successfully manage it without getting blacklisted.

How to send mass emails in Gmail?

There are several ways to send emails in bulk via Gmail. 

Manually adding and labelling contacts in Contacts

The simplest and arguably, most time-consuming way to send mass emails is by adding individual contacts to your mailing list. 

Here’s how to do that:

• Head to contacts.google.com.
• Click on the “Add new contact” button in the bottom right corner.
• There’s an option to add a single contact or multiple contacts.
• Enter the contacts’ information. 
• Click on “Save” when you’re done. 

You can also add contacts automatically. Google Contracts automatically saves the email address of anyone that you’ve contacted. 

To make sure the feature is turned on:

• Go to your Gmail.
• Open “Settings” in the top right corner by clicking the ⚙️icon.
• Select “See all settings.”
• Open the “General” tab, and scroll down to “Create contacts for auto-complete.”
• Select “When I send a message to a new person, add them to Other Contacts so that I can auto-complete them next time.”
• Scroll down to the bottom and click on “Save Changes.”

The next step is labelling the contacts in that list. The labels feature operates across Gmail and Google Contacts and users to make the most out of an email marketing campaign.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how label the contacts in your mailing list:

• Click on “Add contact” or “Edit Contact”.
• Click on the Label icon.
• Choose a label.

To create a label:

• Click on the Label button at the top of the contact list. 
• Select “Create a label.” 
• add a name for the label and click “Save.”

To send an email to your new mailing list, go to your Gmail dashboard, click on “Compose” and add the label name into the “BCC” field.

Using Google Sheets

You can send bulk emails in Google Sheet with the Yet Another Mail Merge add-on. 

There are a couple of ways to enter your contacts into the Google Sheet depending on whether or not you have a pre-existing contact list in Google.

If you are starting from scratch, you need to:

• Open Google Sheets and create a blank spreadsheet.
• Add the column headers you plan to include in your mass email in Gmail, such as email address and first name. 
• Fill out the sheet with information.
• Go to Gmail and click on “Compose” to create a new email.
• Use {{..}} for each attribute. Make sure that they match your column headers in the sheet.
• Save the email as a draft.
• Go to Google Sheets and select “Add-ons” from the menu.
• Select Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM) and click on “Start Mail Merge.”
• Select the draft email.
• Tick the checkbox for “Track email opened, clicked, or bounced.”
• In Google Sheets click on the “Send Emails” button.

If you have a pre-existing contact list:

• Open Google Sheets and create a new, blank spreadsheet.
• Click on the “Add-ons” option in the top menu.
• Select Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM) and then click on Import Contacts (Google, Salesforce).
• Select the contact list you’d like to import.
• Click on the “Import Contacts” button.
• Select “Start Mail Merge,” create your message, and click on “Send Emails” in Google Sheet.

Getting a Gmail extension 

Sending mass emails might be a little easier with the right Gmail extension. There are plenty of extensions available in the Google Workspace Marketplace, which features free and paid applications that work with Google Workspace services.

Some of the most popular choices are GMass, Mailmeteor, Yet Another Mail Merge, Vocus, and Mergo.

Using an email marketing service

Gmail is a popular email provider, but when it comes to sending emails in bulk, it does have certain restrictions to prevent spam. The Gmail mass email limit is 500 a day. 

Email marketing services are a great tool for email campaigns. Not only do they allow users to send unlimited bulk emails in Gmail, but they also help automate the most time-consuming processes that go into it. 

Sendinblue doesn’t put a cap on how many emails you can send and has a rigorous authentication process to keep spammers away to protect the sender’s reputation. 

Another important benefit of using an email marketing service is that it won’t affect email deliverability and will help you stay GDPR-compliant.

Bottom Line

Email marketing is a crucial part of any business’s marketing strategy. For that reason, there are a couple of ways to learn how to send mass emails in Gmail. A large company would likely benefit from an email marketing service, but if you’re sending fewer than 500 emails per day, you can opt for Gmail and Google’s features.