Max. no. of recipients in Outlook
Max. no. of recipients in Outlook
Author
Discussion

T40ORA

Original Poster:

5,177 posts

240 months

Thursday 18th February 2010
quotequote all
I've just been told by me ISP support desk that the problem that I've been having with sending emails to multiple recipients is due to a fault in Outlook. Their maximum is 50 recipients, but I got bounced after only 19.

I've just tried sending such a mail to 45 people from Webmail and I don't seem to have had a problem, so I guess that the ISP is correct and there is a problem with Outlook.

Anyone got a link to where I can find a solution to this, or better still solved the problem themselves? Currently looking at Microsoft site but it's slow going and the references don't seem to match my problem, i.e. they mention numbers from 150 up to 5000.

TIA

Edited by T40ORA on Thursday 18th February 15:31

TurricanII

1,516 posts

219 months

Thursday 18th February 2010
quotequote all
Not sure about the limit but what you can do is send them as a mail merge in Outlook. This sends them one at a time individually addressed. I fired an email off to a few thousand company contacts - took ages but worked. You might look at using an online service for bulk emailing.

T40ORA

Original Poster:

5,177 posts

240 months

Thursday 18th February 2010
quotequote all
I'm only looking at about 50, so there shouldn't be a problem. But there is.....

Ranger 6

7,524 posts

270 months

Thursday 18th February 2010
quotequote all
laugh 50!

I prepared a corporate email the other day which had to be split into two - 950 addressees

Easily and regularly send to 200-300 people.

T40ORA

Original Poster:

5,177 posts

240 months

Thursday 18th February 2010
quotequote all
Ranger 6 said:
laugh 50!
Precisely. 50 should not be a problem. But it is, so I'm trying to track down the solution.

Kudos

2,674 posts

195 months

Thursday 18th February 2010
quotequote all
How big is the message? Perhaps they are too big and exceed some limit?

I'm not aware of Outlook limit, more likely something with the ISP. Assume you are using POP/IMAP rather than a local server?

I wouldn't rule out an Outlook bug though

T40ORA

Original Poster:

5,177 posts

240 months

Thursday 18th February 2010
quotequote all
Just a small email; the ISP say there is no propblem at their end (I'm not totally convinced though) and that "looking through Google there could be a bug with Outlook".

But I haven't found anyone else who has had the same problem. So I seem to be stuck for the moment.

arcturus

1,495 posts

284 months

Friday 19th February 2010
quotequote all
Which version of Outlook?

TurricanII

1,516 posts

219 months

Friday 19th February 2010
quotequote all
TurricanII said:
the solution is to send them as a mail merge in Outlook. This sends them one at a time individually addressed.

T40ORA

Original Poster:

5,177 posts

240 months

Friday 19th February 2010
quotequote all
TurricanII said:
TurricanII said:
the solution is to send them as a mail merge in Outlook. This sends them one at a time individually addressed.
eah, but that just addresses (unintentional pun) the symptom, not the problem. 50 recipients should be perfectly OK.

Running Outlook 2007.

lestag

4,614 posts

297 months

Friday 19th February 2010
quotequote all
T40ORA said:
TurricanII said:
TurricanII said:
the solution is to send them as a mail merge in Outlook. This sends them one at a time individually addressed.
eah, but that just addresses (unintentional pun) the symptom, not the problem. 50 recipients should be perfectly OK.

Running Outlook 2007.
To an exchange 2007 server the default is 5000 and that can be changed by the admin

if you connect to a smtp server via pop or imap, then is is probably a limit on the smtp server.

If you tried another email client you would probably have the same problem.

Here is an add-in (trial) that may help
http://www.office-addins.com/-outlook-addins/batch...

www.slipstick.com is another good place for outlook add-ins

http://cs.its.uiowa.edu/exchange/recipientslimits....
this probably explains it best

I have just tried in outlook 2007 to send an email to 30 email addresses ( 1@xxx thru to 30@xxx at my domain)
and the first result I go was an error that 28@xxx was not vaild (well they are all not valid , but should get through to my catch all account)

After trying it a couple more times 1@xxx to 27@xxx i get an error "550 too many bad consecutive recipients"

Which sounds like the server is doing some form of spam filtering

So in summary the smtp server is stopping me from sending, not outlook. If you get a server error , then it is the server stopping things not outlook
IMNSHO

T40ORA

Original Poster:

5,177 posts

240 months

Friday 19th February 2010
quotequote all
Thanks. I'll check this out and absorb your info. The message I'm getting is a System Admin one, which I assumed was from the server.

lestag

4,614 posts

297 months

Friday 19th February 2010
quotequote all
if you get
nnn "error phrase"
it is a smtp server error
unfortunately they have been bdised to hell over the years and don't always mean what they say ....