Bulk E-mail

Considerations

CIT offers the ability to send an e-mail message to large numbers of recipients. You could do it yourself, but consider the following:

• You'd have to enter ALL those e-mail addresses into your mail client.
• You'd cause a sudden (and potentially disruptive) spike in network traffic.
• You might run afoul of university policy. (See University Policy 5.2, Mass Electronic Mailing) Ouch.

On the other hand, when you send your bulk message through CIT:

• We can take your e-mail addresses in a variety of formats.
• Our method won't disrupt the network.
• We ensure that you aren't doing something that will get you in trouble.

University policy applies if you want to send a message to ALL members of one or more of the following groups:

Messages to ALL students or academics or staff or alumni

1. Assemble the following pieces of information:

• message: must be plain text; no colors, bullet lists, font changes, etc.
• text to appear in subject line of message
• "from" address: we strongly recommend using a special mailbox rather than a personal address (why?)
• recipients: just tell us which group (alumni, students, faculty, or staff).

2. Send the information to the office of the person who must approve the mailing:

3. The approver's office sends the information to bulkmail@cornell.edu
        CIT cannot proceed without permission from the approver's office.
   
4. CIT creates the message and sends a test message to the person requesting the mailing.
5. The requestor approves the mailing.
6. CIT distributes the message over the course of several hours.

Messages to other groups or sub-groups

1. Assemble the following pieces of information:

• message: must be plain text; no colors, bullet lists, font changes, etc.
• text to appear in subject line of message
• "from" address: we strongly recommend using a special mailbox rather than a personal address (why?)
• recipient list: you will need to provide a file with a list of the e-mail addresses. This list should be plain text with one address per line (but if your list is in a different format, tell us what you have and we'll tell you if we can use it as is)

2. Send the information to bulkmail@cornell.edu
3. CIT creates the message and sends a test message to the person requesting the mailing.
4. The requestor approves the mailing.
5. CIT distributes the message over the course of several hours

Why use a special mailbox as the sender?

Several reasons:

• A special mailbox address can make it easier for the recipient to identify the purpose (and importance) of your message
• If there are some invalid addresses in your list (and there are always invalid addresses!), your personal mailbox won't get clogged with error messages.
• If recipients reply to the message, those replies will all be delivered to a convenient place.
• With a special mailbox, little things like a staff member getting sick or going on vacation doesn't affect your ability to respond in a timely fashion.

Please see CIT's pages discussing special mailboxes for more information.

Quick Links

• Send a message to ALL Academics or Staff or Students or Alumni

• Send a message to some other large group (or subset of the groups listed above)

• Considerations

• University Policy 5.2, Mass Electronic Mailing