Mailing Lists

This settings page is only available to domain administrators.

Mailing Lists are a great way to allow users to communicate with a number of different individuals via a single email address. For example, many companies use mailing lists to email newsletters, promotional offers, or information about product updates to subscribers. Unlike an Alias, a mailing list allows people to subscribe to, or unsubscribe from, email communications. In addition, mailing lists can be public or private, be replied to by all users or managed by a single list administrator and more. NOTE: SmarterMail can accommodate mailing lists of up to 75,000 subscribers. Anything greater than that should be managed by a third-party mailing list service provider such as Constant Contact or MailChimp.

Using a mailing list is as simple as sending a standard email: the allowed posters simply send an email to the list address, which takes the form of the list name appended to the domain name. For example, if you create a mailing list called "newsletter" you send a message to newsletter@example.com. If there are other requirements, such as a password, etc. those need to be taken into account as well. For more information, see Creating a New Mailing List.

By default, when a subscriber reads a mailing list message, the From field in the subscriber's inbox will display the email address of the individual that sent the mailing list message; the To field will display the list name or mailing list email address; and the Reply To field will display the mailing list email address or the email address of the individual that sent the message, depending on the list settings. Note: Domain administrators and mailing list moderators can customize the From, To, and Reply To fields by editing the mailing list settings.

To view the mailing lists for your domain, click the settings icon. Then expand the Domain Settings and Mailing Lists folders and click Mailing Lists in the navigation pane. A list of the mailing lists for the domain will load in the content pane.

In general, the following columns are available:

• Checkbox - Use these boxes to select multiple mailing lists. Mailing lists must be selected before choosing an action from the actions toolbar.
• List Name - The name of the mailing list.
• Moderator - The "owner" of the mailing list.
• Description - A brief summary of the mailing list.
• Subscribers - The number of people currently subscribed to the mailing list.
• Digest Subscribers - The number of subscribers that receive a digest of mailing list postings. Users can either subscribe to the mailing list and receive each email sent to the list or to the digest, in which case they receive a summary of all messages sent to the list over a specific period of time. Users can not subscribe to both.

The following actions are available from the content pane toolbar:

• New - Clicking this button will allow the domain administrator to create a new mailing list.
• Edit - Clicking this button will allow the domain administrator to edit an existing mailing list's settings.
• Delete - Clicking this button will allow the domain administrator to delete an existing mailing list.
• Send Digest - Clicking this button will allow the domain administrator to send a digest of mailing list postings.