How to send a Gmail mail merge in 2024? (from both inside Gmail and a spreadsheet)

If you’re here chances are you want to do a mail merge in Gmail.

Gmail now has a built-in mailmerge feature which I walk you through how to use in this guide. But before we get into it, it’s important to be aware of its limitations.

Gmail’s new mailmerge feature is only available for those on paid Google Workspace plans, including:

• Workspace Individual
• Business Standard
• Business Plus
• Enterprise Starter
• Enterprise Standard
• Enterprise Plus
• Education Standard
• Education Plus

And Gmail’s built-in mail merge also lacks the following features:

• The ability to track opens, clicks, and replies so you can track performance.
• The ability to cue up an email sequence of follow-ups if no reply.
• The ability to personalize your email beyond name and email.
• Up to 1,500 emails per day.

If that’s a deal breaker for you, don’t worry – you’ll love the second method in this guide.

Let’s jump into these two methods now.

Method 1: Send a Gmail mail merge from inside Gmail

Here’s how to do a mail merge in Gmail

• 1. Open up Gmail on your computer.
• 1. Click Compose to start a new email.
• 1. From the Recipients tab click the icon next to Bcc Ccc and check Mail merge to turn on Mail merge in Gmail.

4. Add your recipients one by one or via Google Sheets

There are two ways to add recipients to Gmail mail merge:

• Add your recipients one by one in the To field.
• Or Adding from a spreadsheet.

Adding your recipients one by one is simple enough, but to send a Gmail mail merge from a spreadsheet, you need to format your Google Sheet with the following columns; first name, last name email.

When you’re adding your recipients in Gmail. Click the To: field – select your recent Google Sheets from the import pop-up — and select your first name, last name, and email fields.

5. Compose your Gmail mail merge email

Now your recipients are ready to go, it’s time to craft your email template for sending.

When writing your email, use fields @firstname, @lastname, @fullname, and @email to personalize the email to each of your recipients.

Method 2: Getting around Gmail’s limitations with the leading Gmail Mailmerge solution

If you’re reading this, chances are you want a free way to do a mail merge or you want to do a Gmail Mailmerge with the ability to track results in real-time and automatically follow up to get more replies.

In this method, we’ll be using Mailmeteor’s Gmail extension recommended by Google themselves (used by 5 million people globally) to send 50 emails at once for free.

Mailmeteor allows you to:

• Personalize your emails with an unlimited number of fields.
• Maximize deliverability and replies with drip-send and schedule features.
• Create auto follow-up sequences sent on your behalf.
• Schedule mailmerges from Google Sheets or the dedicated Mailmeteor mailmerge dashboard.
• Send 2000 emails per day.

Let’s jump into how it works.

How to send a Gmail mail merge campaign from Google Sheets

1. Install Mailmeteor from Google Workspace Marketplace

Maimeteor works via an extension for Gmail, to get this extension simply head to the Google Marketplace and click Install.

2. Create your Google Sheet

Once you’ve installed Mailmeteor for Gmail, go ahead and create a new Google Sheets Spreadsheet. It’s here you’ll create your list of recipients.

If you’ve got a list of recipients ready to go you can upload this by clicking File → Import.

When creating your Google Sheets spreadsheet it’s important you format headers with fields like first name, last name, email, company, postscript, and so on.

It’s these columns we’ll use to personalize our mail merge email in the steps that follow.

Here’s how it should look:

Need help to get started with your mail merge? Get this free demo Google Sheets template and fill it with your own data.

3. Open Mailmeteor from inside Google Sheets

Remember earlier when we installed Mailmeteor? Now we can use Mailmeteor for Gmail to send a mail merge without leaving Google Sheets.

Click Extensions up top in the menu and select Mailmeteor → Open Mailmeteor.

A pop-up window will appear where we can create our personalized Gmail mail merge.

It’s here you can:

• Customize your sender name.
• Create personalized email templates to use again and again.
• Track opens, clicks, and replies.
• Schedule send and add auto-follow-ups if no reply.
• Drip send emails every minute between certain hours to look like a human (good for not going to spam)
• Send fromm an alias address.
• And a whole lot more.

4. Create your email template

If you click create new template, it’s you’ll be greeted with an email composer much like Gmail where you can write out your mailmerge email.

But what’s cool about this composer is the advanced personalization options you get over standard Gmail.

Remember those custom fields we created earlier in our Google Sheet spreadsheet?

It’s here you can add them to your email by clicking Insert variable — and Mailmeteor will automatically fill in the variables when you send your mail merge.

Wondering how to send a mail merge with an attachment? It’s here you can select the paperclip icon to insert a file that will be sent with every email.

Here’s an example of a hyper-personalized template:

Once you’re happy with your email template, click Save template.

5. Preview and test your Gmail mail merge before sending

Once you’ve saved your Gmail mail merge template, you’ll be presented with a window where you can preview your email for each recipient to check the variables work as you expected as well as…

• Send a test email to see what your Gmail mail merge looks like when sent.
• Change the from name that will appear in your sender’s inbox
• Track opens and clicks so you can strike when the iron’s hot.
• Choose what Gmail account you want to send from (Note: sending from a separate Gmail email account helps protect your main one from being marked as spam.)

Once you’re ready to send your campaign hit Send emails or choose the little arrow next to it to schedule send, add a follow-up, or send with autopilot (more on that in the following steps…)

How to add follow-ups and use advanced sending features to get more responses

Next to the send button in Mailmeteor, you’ll have noticed a drop-down arrow, it’s here you can:

• Schedule your mailmerge to go out on a defined data and time (say monday morning when people are generally more active)

• Add follow-up emails to send out after a set number of days based on parameters like–
  • If they haven’t replied, send the next one. (AKA: Gmail follow-up if no response.)
  • If they haven’t opened, send the next one.
  • If they don’t click a link in the previous email, send the next one.

• Use Autopilot which lets you enhance deliverability by defining:
  • How many emails you want to send each day.
  • How much delay do you want to leave between emails so your sending activity looks like real human activity.
  • When to start sending.
  • And what time of day you want your emails to go out.

What you should do now?

By this point, you know exactly how to send a Gmail mailmerge so now it’s over to you.

If you want to send a Gmail mailmerge from a spreadsheet or use advanced features like tracking, auto-follow-ups, and automatic sending - join 5 million Gmail users and add Mailmeteor to your Google account today.

Frequently asked questions about Gmail mail merge