Email Shortcuts
Do you regularly send email to a
list of customers, salespeople, family or friends?
Have you ever
received an email addressed to 50 or more email addresses (yours included)? Do
you find it a bit annoying (if not impersonal) seeing all of those other
addresses included in the email?
Would you like to have one or more
email icons on your desktop that would enable you to send an email to a list of
specific addresses without having all of the addresses appear in the email?
There are actually a number of ways to accomplish this, but the method
described below requires nothing more than your present email client (Netscape
Messenger, Outlook Express, etc.) and a bit of your time.
But first,
here are some email basics. Unless you have just a few people with whom you
regularly correspond, you should set up an address books for specific
addressees. I have a number of address books in my Netscape Messenger (to keep
this as brief as possible, I'll be describing how to perform these tasks using
the Messenger email client, as that is my preferred choice): one for customers,
one for salespeople, one for family, one for friends and still another for my
special buddies.
- From either Netscape Communicator or Messenger, to send an
email to all addresses in a specific address book, click on COMMUNICATOR from
the menu bar at the top and choose ADDRESS BOOK from the drop-down
menu.
- In the left window, click on the address book you want to use
as the basis for your email.
- If you want to send the message to everyone in this address
book, click on any address in the right window, then choose EDIT and SELECT ALL
from the drop-down menu.
Next click NEW MESSAGE from the menu bar and
it will open your send message window with each email address in that address
book designated as a recipient of your message. Then, fill in your subject
line, type your message and click SEND.
- If you want to select specific addresses (not everyone), click
one and while holding down the CONTROL key, click on each of the others to whom
you wish to send your message. Then, click NEW MESSAGE, type in your subject
and copy and click SEND.
OK, this got your 'multiple address' email out, but it will be
one of those that includes all of the addresses to which it was sent. Not very
personal...right? Right...so let's do one to the same list that just shows from
whom the email was sent and isn't cluttered with a whole bunch of email
addresses. But first here are a few important words from Office Helper!
- Perform all of the steps outlined above, except this time
before you send your message, change the "To" designation to "Bcc" for each
address. Do this by simply clicking on the "To" next to each address and then
choosing "Bcc" from the drop-down menu.
- "Bcc" stands for Blind Copy which means there will be no "To"
address in your message. It will just show from whom the message was
sent...much more personal!
This is probably an acceptable routine if you are sending
occasional 'multiple address' emails to just a handful of recipients, but if
you need (or want) to send regular email to big lists, it's time consuming and
awkward. Here's a better and much faster way, but it requires some initial
preparation.
- First, create a comma-delimited database for each list (or
group). A simple method to accomplish this is to use Windows' Notepad. (Start,
Programs, Accessories, Notepad) Open Notepad and enter each email address you
want to include in the list. Enter each address separated by a comma, no
spaces. Do NOT press the ENTER key. Just type them in one after another (let
them string together), but don't forget the comma between them!
It
should look like this:
bill@aol.com,mary@sonic.net,oh@officehelper.com,jones@sonic.net No spaces, just
commas between addresses.
Although a bit more time-consuming, you may
want to consider entering addresses in alphabetical order as it will make
editing the list much easier when it comes to making additions, deletions and
changes in the future. When you have finished your list, save it to your
DESKTOP (let's call the one in this example. CUSTOMERS.TXT).
- Right click on your DESKTOP, choose NEW>, then from the
popout menu choose SHORTCUT. On the COMMAND LINE, type: mailto:?bcc= then click
NEXT. Under SELECT A NAME FOR SHORTCUT, type in a name that will identify the
group of email recipients to whom this shortcut refers (i.e. Family, Clients,
etc.), then click FINISH. In this example, let's call this shortcut icon,
CUSTOMERS.
- Next, find the CUSTOMERS icon on your desktop. RIGHT CLICK on
it and then click on PROPERTIES. On the URL line, under the WEB DOCUMENT tab
you will see: mailto:?bcc= which will be highlighted. Click anywhere to the
right of the = sign to unhighlight the selection.
- Double-click on your CUSTOMERS.TXT icon on your DESKTOP to open
this file. Using your mouse, highlight all of the addresses by DOUBLE-CLICKING
anywhere in the copy.
- From the menu bar at the top, choose EDIT, then COPY (or press
the Ctrl+C key combination on your keyboard). This copies all of the addresses
in the file to your Windows Clipboard.
- Now PASTE this copy onto the mailto:?bcc= line by placing your
cursor immediately to the right of the = sign. RIGHT CLICK and choose PASTE.
Finally click OK to save this email client shortcut with all of the new
addresses.
When you are ready to send an email to this list, it's simply
a matter of DOUBLE-CLICKING on the CUSTOMER email icon. This will open the SEND
MESSAGE window. All you need to do is put something on the subject line, type
your message and click SEND!
That's it. Everyone on your list receives
your message and they don't see the other 75 or 100 email addresses of those
who are also on this list, plus you didn't have to spend a whole bunch of time
doing it the manual way described at the beginning of this article.
When you need to edit your list, DOUBLE-CLICK on your CUSTOMERS.TXT
icon to open the NOTEPAD file. Make your changes, additions, and deletions.
SAVE the file, but before you exit it, copy its contents to your clipboard as
described in Step 4 immediately above.
Next, update your CUSTOMER email
icon, by RIGHT CLICKING on it and choosing PROPERTIES. Delete everything on the
URL line except mailto:?bcc= then PASTE in the new copy as described in Step 6
above and click OK to save the changes.
We, at Office Helper,
appreciate the opportunity to bring you Everything Office. Don't forget to
check out this week's great tip on our website at
Officehelper.com If you have questions,
please email me.
- Rich
Poremba
richp@poremba.com
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