You build a mailing once and send it again whenever your list changes. The people come from one of three places:
- Your contacts: people you keep in SheetCourier, in lists like Customers or Newsletter. Contacts are free and unlimited. See Your contacts.
- An Excel or CSV file: your spreadsheet is the list, one row per person. This is the way for reports where each person gets their own table.
- Addresses you type or paste, kept inside the mailing.
A mailing is your list plus one email #
A mailing remembers:
- Your list: which contact lists (and which lists to leave out), or which file, which sheet or table, the row with the column names, and which column holds the email addresses. Optional: a name column (shown in History), copy (CC) and hidden copy (BCC) columns, and a filter such as “only rows where Region is North”.
- Your message: the subject and the email, with fields like
{{Name}}that are filled in for each person, Excel tables, attachments and your signature. - How it is sent: the email account, an optional reply-to address and the pace.
For contacts and files, the mailing does not store a copy of your list. SheetCourier reads your contacts or the file again every time you send, so a mailing always uses your current list. A typed or pasted list is kept inside the mailing.
Four steps #
The mailing editor has four steps in a strip at the top: Your list, Your message, Check and Send. You can go back to any step. In Check, SheetCourier makes every email without sending anything and lists anything that needs your attention, such as a person with no rows in their table or an attachment that cannot be found.
Excel tables #
An Excel table is a part of a workbook that goes into the email or is attached. Each person can get:
- The same table for everyone, for example a price list or a schedule.
- Their own rows: only the rows where a column of the table (for example Region) matches a column of your list or a field of your contacts.
- Their own sheet: a column of your list names each person’s sheet.
It arrives as a table in the email, a picture in the email, a PDF attachment or an Excel attachment. See Add an Excel table to every email.
Sending #
SheetCourier sends one email at a time through your own account, at a calm pace (by default one email every 4 to 8 seconds). It keeps count of each account’s daily limit (a list bigger than that is sent over several days, see Send to a big list), saves the result for every person in History, and never sends the same mailing run to a person twice. Right before each email it checks your “Don’t email” list again, so someone you mark as unsubscribed during a send is skipped from the next email on. If a mailing stops halfway, Finish this mailing sends to the people not sent yet.
When you send a mailing again, the Send step asks Who should get it this time?: Everyone on the list again (for example this month’s report) or Only people who haven’t got it yet (for example people added since the last time). See Send a mailing again every month.
What stays on your PC #
Your contacts, mailings, history, “Don’t email” list and settings stay in one folder on your PC. Passwords are stored encrypted, readable only by your Windows account. Your emails go straight from your PC to your email provider. See Where is my data?