ISP limitation or MS Outlook / Outlook Express limitation?

  • Thread starter Thread starter AMO
  • Start date Start date
A

AMO

A friend of mine is trying to send email in bulk to about 600 people to keep
them updated with events etc.

He selects all the contacts and puts them into the BCC section.

He then types his email in the normal way.

When pressing send, MS Outlook Express gives an error message that the
message could not be sent as the recipient is invalid.

Now, if he does this in blocks of 20 contacts, everything appears fine.

However, if he tries to do all 600 in one go, it gives this error.

Where is the error coming from, ISP or Outlook or a limitation on the string
length your put in the BCC header or what?

Also, how would one get around this problem?

Thanx

AMO
 
the isp limits it to prevent spamming.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

Vote for your favorite Outlook and Exchange utilities in the
Slipstick Ratings Raffle at http://www.slipstick.com/contest/
 
Also, how would one get around this problem?
Click to expand...

Some hosting services offer mail lists, esp ones where the recipients get a
regular ('subscribed' reminder) message, have to confirm they've "opted in"
and can cancel whenever they want. There are other, perhaps expensive ways
to handle mailing lists, but it might be worth getting some hosting deal at
a tenner a year or so, to handle this, rather than messing with it all by
hand and spending time on workarounds for MS s/w to do it. Peter M.
 
Yahoogroups offers mail list services for free...

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

Vote for your favorite Outlook and Exchange utilities in the
Slipstick Ratings Raffle at http://www.slipstick.com/contest/
 
Diane said:
the isp limits it to prevent spamming.
Click to expand...

Don't know if this applies to Outlook E but I use Pocomail and there is
a facility in that to send in blocks of your choosing.


--
Regards


David G
(remove r u n)
 
poster said:
Some hosting services offer mail lists, esp ones where the recipients get a
regular ('subscribed' reminder) message, have to confirm they've "opted in"
and can cancel whenever they want. There are other, perhaps expensive ways
to handle mailing lists, but it might be worth getting some hosting deal at
a tenner a year or so, to handle this, rather than messing with it all by
hand and spending time on workarounds for MS s/w to do it. Peter M.
Click to expand...

Thanx for everyone that posted a response to this.

My friend isn't very I.T. literate and I was trying to find an easy solution
for him. I also don't want it to be costly as his overheads are increasing.

Whilst I understand NTL's reasons for limiting spam, it does cause my friend
some grief.

I was looking at some bulk email software and wondered whether that would
also get around the problem.

David's suggestion of PocoMail sounds like this might be the only easy way
forward.

I was going to get someone to write a piece of software to send them out one
by one, but its a little tricky getting that software to know which email
currently open in MS Outlook that needs to be sent en masse. There are
various other problems going down the programming route also.

AMO
 
From AMO on 23/Sep/2004 00:53:
Thanx for everyone that posted a response to this.

My friend isn't very I.T. literate and I was trying to find an easy solution
for him. I also don't want it to be costly as his overheads are increasing.

Whilst I understand NTL's reasons for limiting spam, it does cause my friend
some grief.

I was looking at some bulk email software and wondered whether that would
also get around the problem.

David's suggestion of PocoMail sounds like this might be the only easy way
forward.

I was going to get someone to write a piece of software to send them out one
by one, but its a little tricky getting that software to know which email
currently open in MS Outlook that needs to be sent en masse. There are
various other problems going down the programming route also.

AMO
Click to expand...

The easiest solution is a web host that supplies mailing lists, some ISPs also
provide this (e.g. PlusNet). Alternatively use Yahoo Groups. Both of these have
already been mentioned.

Yahoo Groups is fine, I subscribe to several and they are generally pretty free
of spam. You can add a variety of options to get them completely free if you can
be bothered. For your purposes, you could make the group moderator posting only.
It works well and is free.
 
From AMO on 23/Sep/2004 00:53:
Thanx for everyone that posted a response to this.

My friend isn't very I.T. literate and I was trying to find an easy solution
for him. I also don't want it to be costly as his overheads are increasing.

Whilst I understand NTL's reasons for limiting spam, it does cause my friend
some grief.

I was looking at some bulk email software and wondered whether that would
also get around the problem.

David's suggestion of PocoMail sounds like this might be the only easy way
forward.

I was going to get someone to write a piece of software to send them out one
by one, but its a little tricky getting that software to know which email
currently open in MS Outlook that needs to be sent en masse. There are
various other problems going down the programming route also.

AMO
Click to expand...
Sorry, I also should have said that I wouldn't bother with the Outlook
programming. I have done a fair bit of this and it is a painful experience at best.

If you want to go the programming route I suggest using some kind of scripting
language such as Python or locally installed PHP. These have libraries that
allow you to send emails so you could easily write a loop to send messages out
in groups of whatever you wanted.
 
AMO said:
A friend of mine is trying to send email in bulk to about 600 people to keep
them updated with events etc.
Click to expand...

This is called Tarpitting - I do a very similar thing (run a music
promotions company).

Ways round it are as you say send in groups of 20, or if you do it from a
database rather than an address book using mail merge it should physically
send each email seperatly (although it is automated so he just has to
watch).

Other option - plusnet (my isp) has mailing list features - these don't have
such limits but require users to sign up.

HTH
Sam
 
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