Mass email sending

Is there a way to be able to send an email blast using the info already put in the directory? We are hoping to use the entered emails to make announcements or what have you. I know that the iPhone app had that option for a small period of time and it went away. This feature would be helpful in many aspects.

Any member can use the Directory to send email to all adults in the ward (choose Ward Organizations on the left panel, then Adults in the middle panel, then click on the "Email All Adults" link at the top of the right panel). Or leaders and clerks have an option under Leader and Clerk Resources called Send a Message that provides another way to send a mass email.

Thanks very much. One challenge. When the address auto-populates into Microsoft Outlook, the addresses are separated by commas. Outlook requires the addresses to be separated by a semi-colon. Any suggestions?

rosesj wrote:When the address auto-populates into Microsoft Outlook, the addresses are separated by commas. Outlook requires the addresses to be separated by a semi-colon. Any suggestions?

Unfortunately, most other email systems use commas; Outlook seems to be the odd man out on this issue.

It's a bit of a hassle, but you could certainly do the following:

1. Click the appropriate "Email all <organization>" link in the Directory
2. When your Outlook message dialog appears, select the entire contents of the BCC field
3. Hit Ctrl+C to copy that list to your clipboard
4. Go to some editor (a blank document in Word, or Notepad, or any other editor)
5. Hit Ctrl+V to paste
6. Use your editor's Replace function to change every comma into a semicolon
7. Select all and copy the modified list to your clipboard
8. Go back to your Outlook message dialog
9. Paste the modified list into your BCC field

rosesj wrote:When the address auto-populates into Microsoft Outlook, the addresses are separated by commas. Outlook requires the addresses to be separated by a semi-colon. Any suggestions?

You can configure Outlook 2003/2007/2010 to recognize either a comma or semicolon as valid email separators by changing the following setting:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click E-Mail Options, and then click Advanced E-Mail Options.
3. Under When sending a message, check the Allow comma as address separator box.

It appears Microsoft finally got the message, because Outlook 2013 defaults to accepting either.

Kudos to Mike's suggestion. It worked. Thanks to both of you.