MetaChat - I just made a mailing list in gmail

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

27 January 2007

I just made a mailing list in gmail and so I thought I'd share how, in case you might find it handy. →[More:]

To do this, select your contacts for the list, one by one, and in their profiles click "contact details" then "edit contact information", and in the "notes" section write something that's easy for you to remember for that mailing list. For example, if you want a list for all your supermodel friends, put "supermodels" (no quotes) in the notes section.

Then, the next time you want to send an email to the whole group, just click "contacts" on left (not "quick contacts"), and then, in the contacts page that comes up, put "supermodels" in the "search contacts" field.

This will give you a list of everyone who has "supermodels" in their profile notes: Click "Select: all" at the bottom, then click "compose" at the top. That's it. You'll have a compose-mail page with everyone's name in the "to:" field.

Just a note, though: because this results in a mass email where everyone's email is visible to the other people it's best to use this for groups that are connected in some way and won't mind this. If you are just mailing to a bunch of random people who have no connection with each other, it's probably best to do it the old-fashioned way, and use Bcc to hide addresses.

Anyway, it seems like gmail should make this easier but until they do, this is one way to handle it.

post by: taz at: 04:09 | 3 comments

what I do is keep a draft saved with the emails in bcc.. unfortunately gmail doesn't have much functionality in the mailinglist dept..

posted by By the Grace of God 27 January | 05:33

Yes, I'm kind of surprised by this, and always wondered if it's because they want everyone to use googlegroups. Groups may be fine for more heavy-duty correspondence, but silly for the stuff I want to do.

They really ought to have an option "Create Mailing List" where you can just give it a name, tick off whom from your contacts you want to add, choose whether to send normally or Bcc, and the list is created. Then you should be able to choose "mailing lists" in the left menu, and when you click on "supermodels" you get a compose page with the names in the proper field.

posted by taz 27 January | 05:58

There actually is an easier way. Click "Contacts" and then click the "Groups" tab. Add a new Group, then name it and add the list of people you want to be members of your group in the boxes.

Next time you go to send an email to that Group, it'll show up in the little autocomplete box that pops up when you start to type in stuff in the To:, CC:, or BCC: fields.

posted by DoomGerbil 29 January | 18:23

← An Interesting contradiction: || well I won. →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN