Simple Mail-Merge: Use Gmail Mail Merge
Send personalized emails with mail merge
You can use mail merge in Gmail to send personalized email campaigns, newsletters, and announcements to a wide audience.
Important: Mail merge replaces multi-send mode in Gmail. When composing a message, next to the "To:" line, click Use mail merge .
Learn how mail merge works
- Mail merge lets you personalize messages with merge tags, such as @firstname and @lastname. When you send a message, each recipient gets a unique copy of the email in which the merge tags are replaced with your details.
- Recipients can’t check who else you sent the message to. To easily manage conversations, you'll get the recipient’s replies in separate threads.
- If you have a large number of recipients, you can link a spreadsheet that contains their contact information. Any column in the spreadsheet can be used as a merge tag in your message. It includes custom details for each recipient to personalize your message.
Add recipients directly to your message
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top left, click Compose.
- You can also open an existing draft.
- In the "To:" line, add recipients.
- On the right of the "To:" line, click Use mail merge
.
- Turn on Mail Merge.
- In your message, enter @.
- Select a merge tag:
- @firstname
- @lastname
- @fullname
- To insert the merge tag, press Enter.
Tips:
- To ensure your message uses the correct recipient name, check their name in Google Contacts.
- To add multiple recipients, create a label in Google Contacts and group recipients. When you add the label in the "To:" line in Gmail, the grouped recipients populate automatically. Learn how to organize contacts with labels.
- If the recipient isn’t in Google Contacts, mail merge populates the first and last name based on what you enter in the "To:" line.
- For example, if you enter "Lisa Rodriguez <lisa@example.com>" as a recipient, Gmail uses "Lisa" as @firstname and "Rodriguez" as @lastname.
Add recipients from a spreadsheet to your message
Important: Contact information must be in the first tab of your spreadsheet and can only contain text.
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- At the top left, click Compose.
- You can also open an existing draft.
- On the right of the "To:" line, click Use mail merge
- Turn on Mail Merge.
- Click Add from a spreadsheet.
- Select a spreadsheet.
- Click Insert.
- In the window, select the columns from your spreadsheet that have recipient info:
- First name
- Last name (optional)
- Click Finish.
- Your spreadsheet is added to the "To:" line in the message.
- In your message, enter @.
- Select a merge tag.
- Merge tags are determined by the column headers in your spreadsheet.
- To insert the merge tag, press Enter.
Tip: When you use a spreadsheet for recipient information, check the text characters used in your column headers and email addresses.
- If a column name contains special characters other than letters or numbers, you can identify the corresponding merge tag in Gmail by its position. For example, the first column would be called "@A."
- Email addresses that contain special characters are considered invalid.
Learn about default values for merge tags
If you have a recipient with missing information for a merge tag, you get an error message. For example, you get an error if you try to email "Sam <sam@example.com>" and use either the @firstname or @lastname merge tag. This is because Gmail can’t be sure whether "Sam" is this person’s first name or last name.
In this situation, you can:
- Enter a default value in the error message.
- For example, for recipients who don’t have a first name, "Hi @firstname" can be "Hi friend."
- Go back to the draft and:
- Add the missing value in the "To:" line, in Google Contacts, or in the spreadsheet you linked.
- Remove any recipient with missing values from the "To:" line or the spreadsheet you linked.
Find your sent messages
To find your sent messages, open the "Sent" folder in Gmail. In the message, you find a "Sent with mail merge" banner.