Gmail for Mass Emails: Your Updated Guide

This article has been updated to maintain its accuracy and relevance.

Email marketing has become steadily more popular over the years, with many companies now using mass emailing to keep in touch with their customer base. 

With 4.4 billion daily email users in 2024, it’s not surprising that more brands are leaning towards email with their marketing budgets. In fact, 87% of brands say that email is critical to their business’s success, according to a survey by Litmus in 2023.  

As of April 2024, Gmail is the second largest email client in the world with 33.04% of the market share. And as Gmail can be used by both companies and consumers alike, sending from a free Gmail account or your Google Workspaces account on behalf of your business seems like a no-brainer. 

Not so fast! While sending mass email on Gmail is easy (if you know how), it does require staying within certain limits and understanding the current guidance. The new DMARC policies for 2024 tighten the limits on what you can and cannot do. 

Don’t stress – I’ll walk you through the process and give you the latest guidance to make sure that your emails can reach as many of your subscribers as possible. 

What Is DMARC, and Why Does It Matter? 

DMARC, or domain-based message authentication, is a way to authenticate emails and prevent someone from pretending to be you. This added layer of security protects your audience from phishing scams and protects your business by ensuring that the only emails that come from you are from you. 

While DMARC was introduced in 2012 and was always considered a best practice, in 2023, Google and Yahoo announced that DMARC would become necessary to bulk send to users on their mailbox providers, and it went into effect in February of 2024. 

How you are affected by these changes depends on how many emails you send and how big your list is. 

If you want to send emails from an @gmail.com email address, you are limited by a sending limit of 20 emails per hour and 500 recipients per day or 500 emails sent per day split between fewer recipients. These limits are not new. 

What is new is your options if you go over the established Gmail limits. 

In the past, you could use a third-party platform to send more emails from an @gmail.com email address, but the new DMARC authentication does not allow this. 

Therefore, if you want to send to more than 500 users per day or more than 500 emails per day to a smaller number of users, your emails are classified as bulk emails and you can’t send from within Gmail or from a @gmail.com email address. 

beehiiv offers a solution around this with the ability to send unlimited emails to up to 2,500 subscribers for free on the Launch plan, saving you the hassle of dealing with email sending limits. You have the choice between sending from beehiiv’s domain or using your own custom domain, with smart warming tools to help keep your emails out of spam.   

It’s important to note that if you are sending bulk email from a custom domain, you do still have to set up your DMARC authentication with requirements for everyone and additional requirements for anyone sending to 5000+ recipients. This is the case regardless of platform. 

It’s a best practice to set yourself up for growth by setting up your DMARC authentication right away and saving yourself the time and headache later.  

That being said, if you have a small enough sending volume to send in Gmail, the process is easy. Let’s dive in. 

Step-By-Step Guide on How To Send Mass Email in Gmail

The simplest way to send a mass email in Gmail is by using the blind-carbon-copy (Bcc) method. 

You may be wondering why you can’t just enter all of your recipients into the “To” section of your email. The answer to this is simple: If you were to do this, all of your subscribers would be able to see all of the other email addresses that the email they received had been sent to. 

This not only looks unprofessional but isn’t great for protecting your subscriber’s privacy. It can also make your email seem less personal, as your recipients will be able to see that it’s been sent to many other people.

By blind-copying your recipients into your email, it will feel more personal, as if the email has only been sent to them. Follow the set of steps below to send a mass email in Gmail using the Bcc method:

1. Open Gmail and Create an Account if you’re new or Sign-in if you already have an account.

2. Click Compose New Email.

3. Select Bcc at the end of the To row.

4. Copy and paste all of the emails that you wish to send your email to.

5. Click into the To field and add an email address. This could be your company email address or another you’re comfortable with your subscribers seeing (this will be the only visible email address).

6. Compose your email and create a compelling subject line.

7. Click Send.

If you’ve followed the instructions above correctly, you should have successfully sent your first mass email using Gmail -- congratulations! Your subscribers will soon be receiving your first email and won’t have a long list of other emails in the “To” section.

It’s important to note, however, when Bcc can be inappropriate. Bcc should never be used in a situation where someone’s personal data may be unknowingly shared with someone else without their consent. 

Depending on where you live, using Bcc for mass email may also be against the law. For example, in the UK, it’s highly recommended that you use a platform like beehiiv to protect your subscribers’ private information. If you fail to do so and your use of Bcc leads to personal data being handled incorrectly, you can be held liable. 

Limitations To Sending Mass Emails With Gmail

While sending a mass email in Gmail is relatively easy, as we discussed earlier, there are some significant limitations. 

Most companies that regularly send mass emails tend to use an email platform such as beehiiv to avoid these limitations and send more effective communications to their subscribers. This will save you time, energy, and make it easy to send world-class emails. 

We have covered a few of the limitations already, but let’s address them in more detail. 

Cap on Daily Emails

One of the biggest negative factors when sending mass emails with Gmail is that there are caps on the number of emails you can send per day. Google put these caps in place to protect their users from receiving bulk spam emails; however, it does make things tricky if you want to use Gmail for your business marketing.

The cap is set to 500 external emails per day. This could be one email to 500 subscribers, two emails to 250 subscribers, or any combination that leads to a total of 500 emails being sent. If you reach this limit, you’ll receive a message saying: “You have reached a limit for sending mail.”

The limit will reset after 24 hours, so you can’t schedule 500 at 23:59 and expect to send another 500 at midnight. You’ll need to wait a full 24 hours for the limit to reset before sending any more emails. 

500 emails may seem like quite a lot at first; but as you build up your mailing list, you may need to find another way of sending mass emails – like beehiiv. The Launch plan is completely free and includes up to 2,500 subscribers. 

Deliverability Problems

As Gmail isn’t designed to send emails in excess of 500 recipients, there can be deliverability issues when sending mass emails in Gmail. 

Google wants to protect its users from spammy content, so it can flag email addresses that send mass emails or ignore DMARC. This flag can result in your emails landing in your customer’s spam folders.

This is very important to be aware of, as it’s difficult to rebuild domain authority once your email has been tainted by sending mass emails. This is another primary reason why companies tend to use an email company when sending a lot of emails -- to protect their domain authority.

If you’re concerned about email deliverability, learn how to avoid hitting your customers’ spam folders.

Limited Email Design

The final limitation to sending mass emails in Gmail is that you have very little freedom when it comes to creating a personalized email design. 

While you can save templates to avoid typing out the same email over and over again, you won’t be able to create a professional and interactive email design template in Gmail to make your email stand out to your audience.

With beehiiv, you can send beautifully designed email templates to an unlimited number of recipients, ensuring that you can effectively keep in touch with all of your customers without limitations on numbers or worrying about hitting spam folders. 

Try out beehiiv for yourself by starting a free trial today!

Mass Emailing With Gmail (Tips for Getting Started)

Now that you’ve learned the limitations, let’s talk about some best practices for sending mass emails through Gmail. 

Keep Your Subscriber List Up to Date

Keeping your subscriber list up to date makes sure that you’re not missing out on engagement rates by keeping unengaged subscribers around. 

Clean your list quickly and easily by using a re-engagement campaign to find out which of your subscribers aren’t engaging with your content. 

Trust the process: It’s more beneficial in the long run to have a few engaged subscribers than a lot of unengaged subscribers.

When you have a large list, copying and pasting all of your recipients’ email addresses into the Bcc section of Gmail can be very time-consuming, and it’s easy to leave people out or duplicate an email by mistake. 

If you can get into a good routine of keeping your subscriber list up to date, it will save you a lot of time in the long run. 

From your subscriber list, you can easily send an email to all recipients or use the labels functionality to create smaller groups -- more on that later. Using contacts in Gmail will not only save you time, but it will also ensure that no one is left off of your regular mass email sends.

Use Labels

Another great feature we recommend utilizing in Gmail is the labels functionality. This enables you to keep your Contacts list organized by giving different recipients a defining label that categorizes them.

For example, you could add the label “Staff” to anyone in your email list who you work with to ensure that they’re not receiving emails you’d only send to customers. 

Alternatively, you could label all recent subscribers with the label “New” and send new subscribers a friendly welcome email that thanks them for recently subscribing.

beehiiv makes it easy to build a welcome email template that introduces your new subscribers to you, explains what you do, and what they can expect from your emails. 

You can then select a label when choosing who to email rather than manually selecting them one by one -- this will save a great deal of time. Keeping your audience organized in this way will also ensure that you don’t miss anyone by mistake.

Set Up a Google Group

Google Groups is worth looking into if you’re wanting to send mass emails with Gmail, as it involves grouping different email addresses together and giving them one primary email address. 

For example, if you want to include your HR department in any company emails that are sent out, you could add all members of your HR team to a group called “HR” on Google groups. This will create an HR email address that you can use to email all members of the HR group, without the need to input all members’ individual email addresses.

Anyone can use this email address to email all recipients of the group; and if you have a paid Gmail account, the email address will feature your domain (e.g., [email protected]). If you don’t have a paid account, the email address would appear as [email protected].

Google groups do have limitations. You are only able to add 200 subscribers per session, as an example. If you reach the limits, your account can be restricted. 

Not only does this save you time, it will also count as just one recipient when emailing all members of a group. This could make it easier for you to remain under the 500 recipient limit when using Gmail to send out mass emails.

Create a Mail Merger

Another tip for sending a mass email in Gmail is to create a mail merger. Mail Merge is a great way of saving time when emailing multiple recipients, as it allows you to pre-populate an email template with an email list from Google Sheets.

This also provides a more personal element to your email templates, as (as long as your recipients’ details are categorized correctly) you can add your customers’ first names to your emails by simply adding “@firstname” into the subject line/body of the email. This is a great way to increase open rates by adding a personal touch.

Check out this Google help guide to set up your own mail merger.

Consider Using Third Party Apps

Our final recommendation when mass emailing using Gmail is to consider using third-party apps. There are many of these available on the market, including GMass, Saleshandy, Nethunt, and Right Inbox, to name a few.

These third-party applications all come with different benefits but ultimately enable you to email multiple recipients without the stringent restrictions you’ll find with Google. They also provide better tracking capabilities. You’ll find that these apps offer more reliability when sending emails, as emails sent via Bcc are more likely to be seen as spam.

It is worth bearing in mind that these third-party apps will likely come with a subscription fee, whereas you can sign up with beehiiv for free. 

Wrapping Up: Sending a Mass Email in Gmail -- Why Use beehiiv?

Sending emails in Gmail isn’t difficult, but it does come with limitations and isn’t a realistic option for anyone who wants to see their marketing efforts reach their full growth potential. 

If you’re struggling with the new restrictions or want to send mass emails with engaging templates and tracking metrics, start a free trial with beehiiv today. 

Not only can you send your emails to an unlimited number of recipients, there are also a host of other benefits, including audience segmentation, dedicated email blasts, and 3D analytics.

Sign up with beehiiv today to make the most of your mass emails and ensure that your customers receive the best possible communications from your brand.