Mail Merge Email

Question

Mail Merge Email

Hello Apple Community, 🙂

I am desperately trying to find an email solution to email my clients within OS X Yosemite. I have tried a few applications from the AppStore, but I find them mostly problematic and not a real solution.

Intention = Send several hundred emails to several hundred people, all individually addressed with "Hello FIRSTNAME," then bla, bla attached is (your monthly newsletter or whatever I want to attach) , with my email signature included.

Over a decade ago I could get this done in with Word and Outlook on Windows 7 and though I find OS X light years ahead on many levels, there is this one feature I find tremendously valuable is unfortunately missing and I have struggled with for years.

PLEASE HELP 🙂

Solutions tried so far:

1. First, I know how to create a mail merge document in Pages from Numbers with the Pages Data Merge app. As you can tell from what I wrote, this is not what I am trying to do.

2. Three AppStore apps, one would stop the entire process if there was a faulty email and I would have to start over, but I would not know at which point in the list to start from, another that would not support attachments and another that would not support text formatting, so my email signature looked like an old typewriter font.

There is one more solution I have not tried and that is MaxBulk Mailer SE. I just don't want to spend another $60 to be disappointed again. So if anyone has used this please let me know the pros and cons.

One last thought, I really think lacking this feature is a complete stupidity. So please, please, please, put this simple feature back, please.

Mac OS X (10.7.1), Preview

Posted on Jun 23, 2015 5:05 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 3, 2015 9:39 AM in response to williamfromsnoqualmie

in response to williamfromsnoqualmie

Try this Mail Merge application, I hope this will fulfil your requirement.

https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/mail-merge/id1032436108?mt=12

"Mail merge is a desktop application for the production of multiple documents dynamically after merging data from external sources like- xlsx, docx, rtf, txt and placing them into placeholders of document template and then finally creates WYSIWYG PDF and HTML outputs from template document after merging data from xlsx, docx, etc. Same designed template and data source can be reuse multiple times with small changes in external data sources , such as a change of address or a change in the greeting line, etc..

Finally created outputs can be sent out to many "recipients" in the form of PDF or HTML formats using any SMTP setting. It can be your web, or public mail SMTP like-ServerName- smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port- 587
User Name- "user id"
Mail ID- "mail id @yahoo.com"
Password- "password?"."

Reply

Answer 2

libbyfh

Level 1

4 points

Aug 29, 2017 12:06 PM in response to robinfromlexington

Hi, Robin. I downloaded Thunderbird, and what you recommended worked perfectly the 1st time. But there was a mistake in the email itself, so I corrected it and tried again. Many times. It did not populate my Outbox... just copied to my template and said I had no recipients chosen. But I had the same csv file I used the 1st time. I am totally flummoxed. What went wrong? Thanks in advance.

Libby Hellmann

Reply

Answer 3

Jul 10, 2015 1:02 PM in response to williamfromsnoqualmie

Have you considered using Outlook for mac? I'm trying to do the same thing and thinking I might be able to do it using Outlook.

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 10, 2015 1:21 PM in response to williamfromsnoqualmie

The only Apple application with mail/data merge capability is Pages '09 v4.3. Pages v5.5.3 on Yosemite supports mail merge only via a free third-party AppleScript solution that uses the Contacts application.

Reply

Answer 5

Jul 10, 2015 2:00 PM in response to VikingOSX

May I install that version of Pages on my 2015 Macbook Pro with the up-to-date OS?

Reply

Answer 6

Jul 10, 2015 2:10 PM in response to williamfromsnoqualmie

It sounds to me as though you already have Pages '09 which has the built-in Mail merge capability. Since you have a 2015 MBP, you likely only need to sign into the OS X App Store, and either look in the Updates to see if Apple is pushing a free Pages v5.5.3 to you, or check if Apple's Pages in the store is a free download. Pages v5.5.3 has 100+ fewer features than Pages '09 v4.3.

Reply

Answer 7

felsonj

Level 1

0 points

Dec 13, 2015 4:22 PM in response to williamfromsnoqualmie

I don't understand why OS X Mail *still* lacks built-in mail merge functionality. Version after version of OS X, and still nothing. Mail merge is a very commonly used function for office work. Why is this neglected by Apple?

Reply

Answer 8

Mar 14, 2016 6:26 AM in response to williamfromsnoqualmie

One solution I have found and use daily is the mail merge add-on function in Thunderbird (free mail app from Mozilla). I create my list in Pages (can also be done with Excel) for Mac with headers for NAME and EMAIL and save it as a .csv file. After installing Thunderbird's add-on, I create the email with the "To" field as {{EMAIL}} (be sure to have two brackets on each side.) In the body of the letter, I begin with Dear {{NAME}}, (again, be sure to have two brackets on each side.). When you are finished with the letter, you can save it as a template. This is useful if you send the same letter style regularly. Then, go to File/mail merge and you will then see a pup-up.

Under CSV, Browse to your .csv file to select.

Under Message/ Deliver Mode, select Send Later if you want to view email for possible errors before sending. I have saved myself a lot of trouble by doing it this way.

After years of doing the mail merge this way, I am dumbfounded why I still have to use third party software on a mac for this simple operation. I hope this helps you with mail merge solutions.

Reply