How to do an email mail merge outloook

The classic email mail merge!

In Outlook, you can perform a mail merge using the "Rules" feature and a little bit of creativity. Here's a step-by-step guide:

Prerequisites:

  1. You have a list of contacts or recipients in a CSV file or an Excel spreadsheet.
  2. You have a template email in Outlook that you want to send to each recipient.

Step 1: Prepare your data

  1. Open your CSV file or Excel spreadsheet and make sure it has the following columns:
    • Email address (or a unique identifier for each recipient)
    • First name
    • Last name
    • Any other fields you want to use in your email template (e.g., company name, job title, etc.)
  2. Save your file as a CSV file (e.g., "recipients.csv").

Step 2: Create a new rule in Outlook

  1. Open Outlook and go to the "Home" tab in the ribbon.
  2. Click on the "Rules" button in the "Move" group.
  3. Click on "Manage Rules & Alerts" and then "New Rule".
  4. Select "Start from a blank rule" and click "Next".
  5. Choose "Check messages when they arrive" and click "Next".
  6. Click "specified words in the subject or body" and then "specified words" in the next window.
  7. Click "OK" to create the rule.

Step 3: Set up the rule

  1. In the "Rules and Alerts" window, click on the "Conditions" tab.
  2. Click on "Advanced" and then "Field" in the "Edit Rule" window.
  3. Select "Recipient" and then "contains" in the next window.
  4. Click "Browse" and select your CSV file (e.g., "recipients.csv").
  5. Choose the "Email address" column and click "OK".
  6. Click "OK" to close the "Edit Rule" window.

Step 4: Create the email template

  1. Open a new email in Outlook and create a template with placeholders for the recipient's information (e.g., {{First Name}}, {{Last Name}}, etc.).
  2. Save the email as a draft.

Step 5: Set up the action

  1. In the "Rules and Alerts" window, click on the "Actions" tab.
  2. Click on "Move to" and then "specified folder" in the "Edit Rule" window.
  3. Select the folder where you want to save the merged emails (e.g., "Sent Items").
  4. Click "OK" to close the "Edit Rule" window.

Step 6: Run the rule

  1. Go back to the "Rules and Alerts" window and click "Apply" to run the rule.
  2. Outlook will read the CSV file and merge the email template with the recipient's information.
  3. The merged emails will be saved in the specified folder.

Tips and Variations: