Sending email to a long list of addresses using Outlook

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neb

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#318783 20-Feb-2025 15:02

I need to send a one-off notification about some data/server location changes to a list of a bit over 200 email addresses. A fair bit of googling and some experimentation has failed to find any way to do this with Outlook that doesn't involve manually cutting and pasting each address, one at a time, into a BCC field or the "Add user" field in an Outlook Group. Is there any way to do this in Outlook?

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#3344968 20-Feb-2025 15:27

This looks like it will do what you want,

But you'll need to get the addresses out into excel (although an export of your contacts should make that possible)

https://superuser.com/questions/1134049/import-contacts-in-outlook-in-one-group

bagheera

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#3344969 20-Feb-2025 15:27

that is a good way to get your email server blacklisted - sending that many emails without an unsubscribe option from 3rd party mail host like mailchimp normally get you put on a blacklist

lxsw20

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#3344971 20-Feb-2025 15:32

200 is fine for a 1 off - you're not even touching the sides of 365 daily limits. Just make sure you use BCC....

bagheera

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#3344972 20-Feb-2025 15:35

lxsw20:

200 is fine for a 1 off - you're not even touching the sides of 365 daily limits. Just make sure you use BCC....

from what I have seen with Christmas party invites, even tho below limits ie around 200 1 off, they still get added to blacklist -

neb

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#3344977 20-Feb-2025 15:47

wellygary:

This looks like it will do what you want,

But you'll need to get the addresses out into excel (although an export of your contacts should make that possible)

https://superuser.com/questions/1134049/import-contacts-in-outlook-in-one-group

Thanks, I'll give that one a go when I can get to a system with Office set up. And to answer the comment in another reply, it'll be BCC'd, it's just a a one-off note to tell the user list on an old system that things have moved.

panther2

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#3344987 20-Feb-2025 16:03

You could do this with excel using vba to create the email in display for you to manually click send to a bulk email as bbc

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MurrayM

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#3345202 21-Feb-2025 09:09

lxsw20:

Just make sure you use BCC....

Unlike the school that sent my company an email this morning advising that they'd had their email system hacked and so were advising everybody that they'd ever had any contact with. The email they sent us had 500 CC'd addresses on it. Didn't take long before people were hitting Reply All and saying "why are you contacting me" or "thank you for the warning", and of course those replies were sent to everyone.

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#3345223 21-Feb-2025 10:54

neb: I need to send a one-off notification ...

Simple. Get all addresses into one column in Excel, 1 under neath the other. Select all, Copy, Paste into BCC field.

This has worked for me previously using the Desktop / Classic Outlook client & a test with OWA works as well. The addresses will be listed one, underneath the other. As soon as you click out of the BCC field, Outlook will add the ; delimiter & underline valid email addresses.

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networkn

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#3345230 21-Feb-2025 11:33

lxsw20:

Just make sure you use BCC....

YES!

gehenna

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#3345232 21-Feb-2025 11:42

networkn:

lxsw20:

Just make sure you use BCC....

YES!

Double yes!! It's one of my biggest peeves when my address is visible in a huge list of other recipients.

lxsw20

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#3345233 21-Feb-2025 11:46

I've seen suppliers advertise their client list by just emailing people directly.

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nutbugs

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#3345281 21-Feb-2025 13:27

Simple. Get all addresses into one column in Excel, 1 under neath the other. Select all, Copy, Paste into BCC field.

This.

I did this last week using Outlook.

neb

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#3345511 22-Feb-2025 01:16

wellygary:

This looks like it will do what you want,

But you'll need to get the addresses out into excel (although an export of your contacts should make that possible)

https://superuser.com/questions/1134049/import-contacts-in-outlook-in-one-group

Well, that didn't work. Followed the instructions and the list of Excel contacts ended up in the "Add email addresses" box with "Add" greyed out and the only option being "Cancel".

neb

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#3345512 22-Feb-2025 01:52

Finally figured out something that worked, which avoided anything involving Microsoft: I used sed to rewrite the recipient list into a semicolon-delimited list broken up into 500-character chunks to limit the number of email addresses in each mailing and pasted each chunk into the BCC field, which converted it into a set of recipients.

To paraphrase Blackadder, "If you want something done properly, kill any Microsoft involvement before you start".

gehenna

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#3345519 22-Feb-2025 09:56

Sounds more complicated than the earlier answer using Excel and Outlook. I don't think the problem with your use case is Microsoft.

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