How to send an email message to entire ward ???

[russellhltn]

Did "Send a Message" get disabled in the Application button for Stake and Ward leaders?

It didn't get "turned off" as much as it's being replaced. I'd imagine everyone in LCR is affected until they get the replacement in place.

[1968leocomeeatabite]

As russellhltn posted above https://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22771 the application seems to be down, until they get it up and running "shortly".

I am hoping that the new "send a message" will have the ability to do attachments but most of all a text editor like bold, underline, Italic, bullet points, text size, text color, ETC. THAT WOULD BE REAL NICE!

Also it has been eluded to above in this thread that using your personal e-mail can be troublesome because they will have a limit on how many addresses you can enter in the send to field (bbc). I don not think that you can do all e-mail in one ward let alone a stake into one e-mail message.

[jayriggity]

I'm not sure about other email clients, but with gmail, there does not appear to be a limit to the number of recipients allowed in the "bcc" field. At least not one small enough to prevent me from sending to all of the addresses in our ward.

My understanding, however, is that the recipients' email providers might catch emails with large numbers of recipeints and toss them out as "spam."

To get around that, I have used the feature discussed above for getting a copy/paste field of all email addresses and then sent multiple emails (break up the emails into groups and then send the same message to each group in a bcc).

[scgallafent]

I am hoping that the new "send a message" will have the ability to do attachments but most of all a text editor like bold, underline, Italic, bullet points, text size, text color, ETC. THAT WOULD BE REAL NICE!

Sorry, that isn't part of this update. The product manager is aware of that suggestion, but the goal was to fix the bugs in the current application before considering adding any new features.

[russellhltn]

My understanding, however, is that the recipients' email providers might catch emails with large numbers of recipeints and toss them out as "spam."

However, recipients can't see "bcc". That would only apply to "to" or "cc". Unless you're talking about providers who notices a large number of their users getting the same email.

But in the case of someone like Google, I think if some recipients classify it as spam, then it goes into the spam folder for everyone. So the desire to email the ward could backfire.

[jayriggity]

Something like that, yeah. I've just heard that some email providers will automatically flag an email that is sent to a large number of recipients. Maybe using bcc gets around that, I don't know. But I use bcc no matter what b/c I've had ward members complain before about it. I learned my lesson ("reply all" on a church email with 150 people can cause some issues...)

[jayriggity]

And, wow, I didn't know that gmail (or any other provider) did that -- using one user's spam flag as a signal for all other users. That could really cause some problems if I have one random inactive guy on my list who flags us as spam. I hope that doesn't happen.

[russellhltn]

And, wow, I didn't know that gmail (or any other provider) did that -- using one user's spam flag as a signal for all other users. That could really cause some problems if I have one random inactive guy on my list who flags us as spam. I hope that doesn't happen.

I'm not sure of the details. It might be a type of "voting" and if too many do it, then it happens. Just realize that something more then just moving the email happens when people click "spam". As such, I think I'd caution leaders about "routine" emails and focus on changes that need to get out.

[sbradshaw]

Google's servers (on the outgoing mail side) refuse to send emails with too many recipients. I can't find the exact number published anywhere, but I've ran into that limitation a few times. Breaking it up into multiple emails usually works, but there's also an overall limitation, I believe, that I've run into a couple of times, for sending too many emails (number of recipients) in one day.

[lajackson]

I've just heard that some email providers will automatically flag an email that is sent to a large number of recipients. Maybe using bcc gets around that, I don't know.

No, it doesn't, because your email provider has to know all of those bcc addresses to send out the emails, even though the recipients don't know them. Your provider knows exactly how many messages are being sent.

Google's servers (on the outgoing mail side) refuse to send emails with too many recipients.

In my experience, Google will limit you to 500 recipients a day. That would be one message sent to 500 people, or it could also be 10 messages sent to 50 people each. So if you sent out 50 personal emails during the day to friends and family, then tried to send out the big ward mailing that evening, you would be limited to 450. If you hit the limit and get locked, you will normally be unlocked after 24 hours.

There is also a bad or broken address limit. I believe 25 bad addresses will cause you grief, but the number may be lower than that, so clean your address list each time you send.