Power Tools for Email
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Note: You will get a few emails today if you sign up.
Wish you had a way to send emails like you print labels? Then email merge is your tool of choice. Tools like Yet Another Mail Merge and FormMule make sending out bulk emails to your students, colleagues, friends, and family easy as compiling a list in Google Sheets.
AutoCrat, another add-on to Google Sheets, makes converting Forms content into PDF and Google Docs.
Important Info To Keep in Mind
Free Gmail account: If you use a free Gmail account, you are limited to sending a maximum of 500 emails in a 24-hour period, and a maximum of 100 addresses per email.
Paid Google Workspace account: If you use a paid Google Workspace account, you are limited to sending a maximum of 2,000 emails in a 24-hour period.
Tool #1: Google Contacts
Create Your Own Email Group
Did you know you can create your own groups in Gmail to make sending emails easier? Follow these steps:
Click on the MAIL under your organization logo
Select "Contacts"
Click "Create Label" and type in the name of the label that you want for everyone in your group.
When you type that label into your To: in Gmail, you will send a message that group of people the label represents.
Tool #2: Google Groups
Get Stuff You Need First
Go to https://groups.google.com on a personal Gmail account
Set up a new Group
Prepare Your Mail Merge Data
Compile a list of everyone you want to invite to your new Google Group
Paste the group member email addresses into the appropriate space
Sending Group Email
Send email to the group address
Copies of sent emails are saved in your Gmail Sent folder as well as on the Group page
Did you know you can add a Chrome extension to record audio questions or leave voice notes in Google Forms? Leave voice notes for Form-fillers using one of these tools: 1) Mote; 2) Talk and Comment. Need a browser-based alternative? Explore these two options: Vocaroo and SpeakPipe are fun options, too.
Bulk Email Tips
Tip #1 - Send out custom directions or information. Need to send out Home Learning Codes for Seesaw? Seesaw provides you with a comma-delimited file that you can use. Use bulk email for that.
Tip #2 - Create custom comments in English or Spanish. Put comments can be placed in different columns, then include them in the text/body of your email. Some examples of English comments can be seen in this blog from Scholastic and Spanish ones are available here.
Tool #3: Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM)
Get Stuff You Need First
In Google Sheets, get the YAMM add-on
Prepare Your Mail Merge Data
In Gmail, create a draft copy of your email and leave it in your Draft folder, unsent. Put {{ }} around merge tags, such as: {{FirstName}}
In Sheets, create your Sheets with Name and Email columns of data, at minimum
Sending Bulk Email
Send 50 to 100 emails using YAMM Add-On (see pricing for more)
Copies of sent emails are saved in your Gmail Sent folder
Track interaction with your emailed message in Sheets
Tool #4: FormMule
Get Stuff You Need First
In Google Sheets, get the FormMule add-on
Prepare Your Mail Merge Data
In Sheets, create your Sheets with Name and Email columns of data, at minimum
In Sheets, work through FormMule wizard. You may want to compose your HTML email in a text editor to get it to look the way you want
Sending Bulk Email
Send total emails your Gmail account supports (500 or 2000) with FormMule
Copies of sent emails are saved in your Gmail Sent folder
Track job completion with your emailed message in Sheets
Tool #5: Thunderbird Email
Ready to use free, open source tools to send email with an attachment? Get what you need first, then give it a try. Watch the video to the right.
Get Stuff You Need First
Get Thunderbird for Windows, Mac, or GNU/Linux
Get Mail Merge Extension for Thunderbird
Get ThunderHTMLedit (nice to have)
Prepare Your Mail Merge Data
Create a spreadsheet or CSV file (download from Google Sheets) with "first name", "last name", and "email" as column headers for data (view tutorial)
Save spreadsheet to your computer
Open Thunderbird, start an email message and set it up the way you want it to appear
Click on Mail Merge message then select spreadsheet
Tip for Microsoft 365 Users
Working with Microsoft Outlook, Excel and Word? Then you can do the same thing. Most of your work will happen in MS Word, then use the built-in wizard to set your data source as an Excel spreadsheet. Merged email messages will be sent via Microsoft Outlook.
Google Forms and AutoCrat
AutoCrat makes it easy to automate merging of data from a Google Form into a Google Doc or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). This is pretty easy, but it requires you to be aware of several components.
Bonus Tips: Forms to Docs or Certificates
Wish you could do more with GoogleForms and GoogleSheets? Then check out these "You can't live without 'em!" add-ons to our favorite Google tools! Do you use GoogleForms and/or Google Sheets regularly? I'm amazed at how many neat tools are available to enhance these two Google tools.
Here are a few of the ones I've noticed and, when possible, begun slipping into my arsenal of tools to take these two to the next level:
The creator of Form Mule has several other must-have tools you need to check out. Those include:
- Form Limiter: Automatically sets Google Forms to stop accepting responses after a maximum number of responses, at a specific date and time, or when a spreadsheet cell contains a specified value.
Form Publisher: This app lets you use Google Form responses to create documents that can be shared and signed in just a few clicks!
Need certificates? Although Autocrat works great, you can also use the following Google Workspace Marketplace add-on for Forms:
- Certify 'em: Use this add-on to create online certifications and email custom certificates. Certify'em comes with several professionally designed certificate templates, and allows you to specify your own as well (created in Google Slides).