Mail Merge for Gmail with Attachments

➭ Download Mail Merge Add-on: https://goo.gl/AnQhdK

With Mail Merge for Gmail and Google Apps, you can send personalized email messages with attachments to a list with little effort. This is similar to Mail Merge in Outlook except that we are using Google Spreadsheets and not Word or Excel for doing the Merge.

➭ HTML Mail: http://ctrlq.org/html-mail

➭ Mail Merge tutorial: http://labnol.org/?p=20981

➭ Premium Support: http://ctrlq.org/

You can write rich-text HTML messages with inline images and file attachments. The Mail Merge add-on for Google Sheets will also let you schedule message and will deliver them at your preferred date and time automatically.

For help, tweet @labnol

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hello this is a method and today i'll
show you mail merge the mail merge is a
very useful i don't for google apps and
gmail accounts that will help you send
personalized emails to a large group of
people with very little effort you can
use mail merge to send personalized
email invites holiday greetings or even
rich text email newsletters your mail
merge emails can have inline images they
can have attachments and in the latest
version of male much you can even
schedule your messages and send them
later at your preferred date and time
ok let's now see mail merge in action so
to get started i'm on a blank google
spreadsheet and I'll go to the advanced
menu and choose mail merge now you can
find a link to download the side on in
the show notes
now the first step i need to do is I
need to convert this blank spreadsheet
into a mail merge sheet so that simple
from the advanced menu I'll choose
create more sheet and magically this
will transform into a male model sheet
now if you look at this mail merge
template there are a lot of standard
fields that you typically find in any
personalized email you have the first
name the last name on the field i'll
discuss these fields later but let's
first see how we will add data to use a
spreadsheet now there is a simple ways
that you can manually type the data so i
can take the first name the last name
the email manatee are if you're sending
a email blast to a large group of people
there is an easier rate what we can do
is we can go to google contacts and
there we can create a group of people
who want to send a mail merge two
so while i'm in google contacts cells
and please select one or more email
addresses of contact and then i'll put
them in a drop
and now that i have created a group in
google contacts I was switch to the
google spreadsheet and from the add-ons
menu I'll choose import contacts that
will show me a list of google contacts
trip that are available and i'll choose
the one that i just created and click OK
and then seconds it will import all the
contacts that are available inside that
google contacts crip and now that we
have imported the google contacts in the
spreadsheet our basic data is in place
but we will add a few more columns are
essentially whatever feels you're trying
to personalize we will add one column
for every field
so for this example let's say we're
trying to send personalized emails are
two different people inviting them for a
meeting with your executive and meeting
will be held in a different venue on a
different date so we will add a column
for each of these variable fields for
date for executive named and for the
venue and once the columns are in place
i'll quickly fill in some dummy data
into these clothes
now in this version of memories you can
also send personalized attachments for
instance you can send one file to an
email address at the set of files to a
very merry address so your body of the
message can be different in your
attachments can also be different
so how do you add files to your mail
much which is very simply go to the file
attachments column and we will add the
URL of the files here now there are two
ways to a new audience of one is like I
go to my google Drive and there are all
the files that i can attach to my mail
much so i can right click on any file
and then get the link and i can paste
this link in the file attachments column
so your meals can have multiple
attachments to so in case you are
planning to send a two attachments to
the same person you can just get the
link of the other file and add it to the
same column separated by a comma
so there's an even easier way as well
instead of manually copying pasting the
URL is what you can do is go to the
add-ons menu and choose add file
attachments
now this will open up the google file
picker dialog and I can feel the files
let's see I want to see when the PDF
files and i can select one or more files
and then hit the silk button
automatically the urls will be inserted
in the corresponding file attachments
column so let's do this one more time i
highlight the role that I want to insert
the file attachment and then I go to the
file attachment menu and this opens of
the file picker
now let's filter by images this time and
select an image and click the blue
select button automatically the URL of
that filin be inserted into the file
attachments column next comes the most
interesting part of me imagine that
scheduling so let's say you have a bunch
of emails but you don't want them to go
now but only this should be delivered at
your preferred date and times and time
later
so what you can do is you can go to the
scheduled date column and specify the
date and time and the messages will be
delivered according
the idea is simple if you keep the
scheduled date column blank those
messages will be delivered instantly but
if you put some value here some date and
time here
those messages will be added to your
queue also you can have a mix of things
so for instance you can have a badge for
you can have certain messages that are
delivered instantly and certain messages
that are delivered at your schedule data
in time so we are all set to send our
first male murder and go to the atoms
menu and choose configure mail merge up
the dialog opens up and you can see that
there are a lot of fields I don't worry
about them because that most of these
fields are optional and there are only
required for advanced users want to have
more control over the other means are
saying so let's quickly go through these
fields one by one
first is the email alas now in case you
have multiple email addresses and you
want to send means on behalf of another
account you can choose that hair are
then it's the sender's name this will
show up in all the outgoing messages in
the header of outgoing messages so it's
always a good idea to put something here
and then in case you want to see your pc
someone in your mail merge you can just
add that email addresses here in case
you want to CC or bcc multiple people
you can add that as well just remember
to separate the email addresses by
commerce
the discourage replies option is mostly
recommended for people who are sending
newsletters son they don't want their
replies to be coming in the in box next
to specify the reply to address now in
case you want people to reply to a
different email address then your
default address you can specify that
entrance here and if you have a google
analytics account and select the idea
from this drop down and up on your
outgoing emails will be tried using
google analytics so that's mostly about
the configuration of mail merge and now
let's pick a template
I we have two options here we can either
pick up a draft from my gmail account
and that will be used as the template
are what we can do is we can use the
text area here and composer own tempted
in HTML to keep things simple let's
start with the writing our own HTML
template here so I you have the subject
line and you have the message body
now when you're sending a personalized
email message you have two parts you
have common takes that's common to all
messages that go out and then you have
the variable parts
so the only thing that we need to
remember is that those very big parts
has to be in
double brackets double curly brackets so
for instance like in the subject i want
the I want to put the first name and the
first name should be different for every
message that goes out
so what I'll do is I'll just put first
name and I'll and close this field name
but double curly brackets
you can even have multiple fields in the
subject line so remember we had a column
called executive name so i put that as
well in the subject line again
enclosed in double curly brackets now
let's focus our attention on the message
body here again you can include one or
more variable fields and all those
fields have to be
thank you inside double curly brackets
and up
the only thing that you need to remember
is that those column names that you have
in the spreadsheet and these feelings
they should not so if you have executive
named as the column name in the
spreadsheet
you should have the same name you should
use the same name in the email subject
or in your body
so this text area supports HTML text has
been so you can use the feet i got a
strong tag to avoid any piece of text
you can use span tags to change the
color of forms but if you're not very
comfortable with HTML you can use the
HTML web app to format your text
so what you have to do is go to the HTML
web app and compose your email and visit
more now this supports HTML tables the
supports colors fonts everything
and once you are done composing your
email just go to the source button and
it will show you the HTML source of your
message
so just copy paste this into the text
area of your memories spreadsheet for
this example I'll just use the simple
estimate is that i already have in the
text area and i'll click the Run button
to start the mail merge process now if
you look in the lower right corner is
showing you the progress in real time so
it's telling you what it is doing in the
background when the memories process is
complete so I close this window and
let's look at the main my status column
so remember we had five messages in our
mail merge process and two were
scheduled for sending later so what it
has done is it has send those three
messages and to have been scheduled
are they will be automatically sent but
if you look at the status it's telling
you how long before those messages are
sent
so the messages are sent now let's open
my gmail account to see how to how they
look like and the recipients computer
should go to my gmail account and go to
the sent items folder than
open the messages that have just gone
out will open the message that was sent
to stiffen and you know if you look at
the subject line if you look at the
message body you see that all those
variable fields that we had in double
curly brackets they've been replaced
with the actual values from the
spreadsheet
also if you remember we had put up
attachments are those attachments also
gone out
I'll show you another cool feature of
memory that I haven't discussed before
I'll go back to the mail my spreadsheet
and open the configure mail merge option
again
now here you see an option in green that
says only send jobs now basically what
happens is when you send mail merge
those more emails are sent out
automatically
but in some cases you may you may not
want to send out means you may only want
the program to create draft and your
gmail account that you can review and
send them later
so for that you have this option of only
creating jobs now this can only be used
for simple HTML emails and not emails
that have attachments are inline images
so what I'll do is I'll just click this
button to create the drafts and let's go
back to gmail to see how those drops
looked like in my actual gmail account
so if you open any of these draft that
are created by memories you can see that
they're just like the regular move that
were sent out from mail merge
so all the available fields those in
curly brackets they have been replaced
with the actual values from the sheet
so this is useful in case you want to
send in case you want to review your
messages before sending them
ok that was about creating drought but
now let me show you how you can create a
male template in gmail and then use that
as a template in your mail merge sheet
now the advantages that you can use this
text editor of gmail to compose your
email template and the other advantages
that you can include attachments so in
case you want to have an attachment that
you want to send out to every recipient
you can just put that attachment in the
email draft and the mail merge process
will automatically include that
attachment in every email that goes out
so is my beautiful gmail draft ready to
go out it has in the images and has rich
text formatting and has even attachments
so i switched to the middle my
spreadsheet but before I then made merge
let me show you one more thing
now sometimes so you may want to have
attachments for specific recipient and
not for others
so you remember that our gmail draft
already has two attachment but you may
want to have include more attachment for
specific recipients
so you may do that here it inside the
file attachments condom
so you're all set go to the maid merge
menu and choose configure made much
now here we will choose the gmail draft
as the template type that we just
created and hit the Run button
the messages have been delivered so
that's go to gmail mailbox again to see
how they look like and there you have it
all the attachments all the gyms
everything is result I hope you find the
merge useful and her all the places you
can go in case you need any help and to
visit my website for more cool google
scripts and projects
thanks