Mailing Lists Overview

This settings page is only available to domain administrators, mailing list moderators and system administrators with the proper permissions.

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, tracks bounces, supports digest delivery, and gives you control over who can post. In addition, mailing lists can be public or private, be replied to by all subscribers (a discussion list) or managed by a single list moderator (an announcement list), 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", posters send their message to newsletter@example.com and SmarterMail distributes it to every subscriber. If the list has other posting requirements, such as a password in the subject line, those need to be taken into account as well.

How a mailing list message appears in a subscriber's inbox is configurable per list. By default, the From field displays the mailing list's own address, though it can be set to show the individual poster's address or a specific user instead. Likewise, the To field can show the list address or each subscriber's own address, and the Reply To address determines where a subscriber's reply goes — back to the whole list, to the original poster, or to a specific address. These options matter: a discussion list usually wants replies going back to the list, while a newsletter usually wants replies going to a real person's mailbox.

Mailing lists can be managed by system administrators with Manage Domains permissions, domain administrators and the list moderators themselves. Where you access Mailing Lists depends on the role you possess:

List Moderators

If you are a list moderator, when you navigate to your Settings, you'll have Mailing Lists displayed in the navigation pane. The lists assigned to you are displayed here and can be managed, though creating and deleting lists — along with a few list settings — is reserved for domain administrators.

Domain Administrators

As a domain administrator, lists are displayed on the Mailing Lists tab of the domain's Accounts page. All lists set up for the domain, regardless of moderator, are displayed here, and this is where new lists are created and existing ones deleted.

System Administrators

As a system administrator, select a domain and go to the Accounts area for the domain. All lists set up for the domain's various list moderators can be found on the Mailing Lists tab.

Regarding Split Domains - For installations of SmarterMail HA where a domain is split across 2 or more nodes, mailing lists can only be enabled for that domain on a single node. Therefore, any mailing list administrators all need to be on the same node where mailing lists are enabled.

Regardless of your role, whether creating a new mailing list or modifying an existing one, the list's settings are organized into the following tabs:

Options - Configure the mailing list options and permissions, including how messages are addressed, posting rules, subscribe commands, throttling and digest settings.
Subscribers and Digest Subscribers - Add subscribers who will receive the standard mailing list postings or digest emails.
Allowed Posters - Allow specific email addresses to post to the mailing list.
Banned Posters - Prevent specific email addresses from posting to the mailing list.
Messages - Configure the header and footer for postings as well as the replies sent to listserv commands.
Custom Fields - Customize list postings with subscriber custom fields. (Domain and system administrators only.)

Variables

Emails that are posted to a mailing list support the use of the following variables. These variables can be used in the body or subject line of emails that are sent to the mailing list subscribers and also in the footer, header and subscriber Messages. Though similar to Custom Fields in format, these variables need no additional configuration. Simply enter the variable below to display its associated information. Variables always follow this format: #Variable#

Unsubscribe Link (#UnsubscribeLink#) - Inserts a URL that allows the recipient to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Including this in the Posted message footer is strongly recommended: it keeps unsubscribing painless, which in turn keeps frustrated subscribers from marking your postings as spam.

Note: This URL can also be given friendly hyperlink text (rather than linking the URL) by modifying the "Text to show in unsubscribe link" setting when configuring or modifying a mailing list. For more information, see Mailing List | Options.

Recipient (#Recipient#) - The email address of the subscriber who was sent the message.
Sender (#Sender#) - The email address of the user sending the message.

In addition, three families of date/time variables are available. They work identically, differing only in whose time zone is used: Domain variables use the domain's default time zone (from User Defaults), Moderator variables use the List Moderator's time zone, and Server variables use the server's system time zone. For example, a footer reading "Sent #DomainDayNameNow#, #DomainDateNow#" would render as "Sent Monday, 07/13/2026" for a domain in that time zone.

Date Now (#DomainDateNow#, #ModeratorDateNow#, #ServerDateNow#) - The current date, in shorthand. Ex: 07/13/2026.
Time Now (#DomainTimeNow#, #ModeratorTimeNow#, #ServerTimeNow#) - The current time, displayed in 24-hour format.
Date Time Now (#DomainDateTimeNow#, #ModeratorDateTimeNow#, #ServerDateTimeNow#) - The current date and time, displayed in shorthand and 24-hour format.
Day Now (#DomainDayNow#, #ModeratorDayNow#, #ServerDayNow#) - The current date alone, without month and year. Ex: 13.
Month Now (#DomainMonthNow#, #ModeratorMonthNow#, #ServerMonthNow#) - The current month, in numeric value. Ex: 07.
Year Now (#DomainYearNow#, #ModeratorYearNow#, #ServerYearNow#) - The current year. Ex: 2026.
Day Name Now (#DomainDayNameNow#, #ModeratorDayNameNow#, #ServerDayNameNow#) - The current day of the week. Ex: Monday.
Month Name Now (#DomainMonthNameNow#, #ModeratorMonthNameNow#, #ServerMonthNameNow#) - The current month, by its name. Ex: July.

Note: When editing a list's system messages, the Variables list shown in the message editor displays exactly which variables are available for that particular message.