Gmail mail merge/mass email

Google announced a new mail merge feature on June 27, 2023. C lick to see a short Gmail Merge video demo . T

Interested in Gmail Merge?

This feature is not universally available. Request Gmail Merge at helpdesk@lehigh.edu or request to join this Google Group which automatically provisions you in 24ish hours.

Note that the feature does not appear to be supported in Safari, but works in Edge, Firefox, and Chrome.

Gmail merge options

There are two options for conducting a mail merge in Gmail:

Multi-send. You enter the recipients manually and use default variables @firstname, @lastname, and @email to personalize the message. This is best for under 25 recipients.
Mail merge with Sheets. You create a spreadsheet with a minimum firstname, lastname, email columns. You can only send up to 1500 email recipients a day.

Before you use the new Gmail merge:

In testing mail merge with Sheets, the Preview feature did not seem to work.

Instructions for sending messages via Gmail merge

Note: if you plan to use a Google Sheet recipient list, create the sheet with minimum firstname, lastname, email columns. The column names can be anything you choose.

Step 1. Open a Gmail Compose window.

Step 2. Click in the Sender field. To the right you will see a "people" icon. Click this icon to get started.

Step 3. Select how you will provide recipient.

Option 1. To manually enter email addresses, just check the mail merge checkbox shown right. You can then add the email addresses in the To: field. Then, in the body of the message, use the default variable fields @firstname @lastname @email as needed. Click Continue in the lower left of the Compose window to step through the process of sending your email messages.

Option 2. To use a Google Sheet with minimum First Name, Last Name, and Email columns, click the Mail Merge checkbox AND Add from a spreadsheet (shown above). Select your Google Sheet and click Insert.

Step 4. Google will prompt you to link your column headers to the default variables @firstname, @lastname, and @email – if you get an error at this point (e.g., duplicates, missing headers, go back to review your spreadsheet). Otherwise, Google will let you continue.

Step 5. Compose your email using default variables and also custom variables you may have created in your spreadsheet. These should appear when you type @ and the column header associated with the variable, e.g., Date, Seminar, etc. Your variable should appear in a dropdown you can select, and it will turn gray to indicate that the variable is linked to the spreadsheet data.

Step 6. Click Continue to start the process of sending your email.

Comments from testing...

This feature does not appear to work in Safari, but works in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
The mass email feature does not handle Google Drive doc attachments/links; the email displays only the text of the Drive file name.
The mass email feature will accept links as variables so long as the link begins http:// or https:// – the rendered variable displays as a link in the sent mail.
The preview message did always work. If you do not get the message, do not refresh the page to check for new email. Refreshing deletes the compose message content.
When you Send all messages, your sent mail will show the email template, then each individual message.