ISP limitation or MS Outlook / Outlook Express limitation?

A friend of mine is trying to send email in bulk to about 600 people to keep
them updated with events etc.

He selects all the contacts and puts them into the BCC section.

He then types his email in the normal way.

When pressing send, MS Outlook Express gives an error message that the
message could not be sent as the recipient is invalid.

Now, if he does this in blocks of 20 contacts, everything appears fine.

However, if he tries to do all 600 in one go, it gives this error.

Where is the error coming from, ISP or Outlook or a limitation on the string
length your put in the BCC header or what?

Also, how would one get around this problem?

Thanx

AMO

the isp limits it to prevent spamming.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Outlook Tips: http://www.outlook-tips.net/
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"AMO" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4151ab76$0$82267$(E-Mail Removed)...
>A friend of mine is trying to send email in bulk to about 600 people to
>keep
> them updated with events etc.
>
> He selects all the contacts and puts them into the BCC section.
>
> He then types his email in the normal way.
>
> When pressing send, MS Outlook Express gives an error message that the
> message could not be sent as the recipient is invalid.
>
> Now, if he does this in blocks of 20 contacts, everything appears fine.
>
> However, if he tries to do all 600 in one go, it gives this error.
>
> Where is the error coming from, ISP or Outlook or a limitation on the
> string
> length your put in the BCC header or what?
>
> Also, how would one get around this problem?
>
> Thanx
>
> AMO
>
>

On 22 Sep 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, "AMO" wrote:

>Also, how would one get around this problem?

Some hosting services offer mail lists, esp ones where the recipients get a
regular ('subscribed' reminder) message, have to confirm they've "opted in"
and can cancel whenever they want. There are other, perhaps expensive ways
to handle mailing lists, but it might be worth getting some hosting deal at
a tenner a year or so, to handle this, rather than messing with it all by
hand and spending time on workarounds for MS s/w to do it. Peter M.

Yahoogroups offers mail list services for free...

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Outlook Tips: http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com
Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

Vote for your favorite Outlook and Exchange utilities in the
Slipstick Ratings Raffle at http://www.slipstick.com/contest/

"poster" <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On 22 Sep 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, "AMO" wrote:
>
>>Also, how would one get around this problem?
>
> Some hosting services offer mail lists, esp ones where the recipients get
> a
> regular ('subscribed' reminder) message, have to confirm they've "opted
> in"
> and can cancel whenever they want. There are other, perhaps expensive
> ways
> to handle mailing lists, but it might be worth getting some hosting deal
> at
> a tenner a year or so, to handle this, rather than messing with it all by
> hand and spending time on workarounds for MS s/w to do it. Peter M.

Diane Poremsky [MVP] wrote:

> the isp limits it to prevent spamming.
>

Don't know if this applies to Outlook E but I use Pocomail and there is
a facility in that to send in blocks of your choosing.


--
Regards


David G
(remove r u n)

"poster" <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Some hosting services offer mail lists, esp ones where the recipients get
a
> regular ('subscribed' reminder) message, have to confirm they've "opted
in"
> and can cancel whenever they want. There are other, perhaps expensive
ways
> to handle mailing lists, but it might be worth getting some hosting deal
at
> a tenner a year or so, to handle this, rather than messing with it all by
> hand and spending time on workarounds for MS s/w to do it. Peter M.

Thanx for everyone that posted a response to this.

My friend isn't very I.T. literate and I was trying to find an easy solution
for him. I also don't want it to be costly as his overheads are increasing.

Whilst I understand NTL's reasons for limiting spam, it does cause my friend
some grief.

I was looking at some bulk email software and wondered whether that would
also get around the problem.

David's suggestion of PocoMail sounds like this might be the only easy way
forward.

I was going to get someone to write a piece of software to send them out one
by one, but its a little tricky getting that software to know which email
currently open in MS Outlook that needs to be sent en masse. There are
various other problems going down the programming route also.

AMO

On 22 Sep 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, "Diane" wrote:

>Yahoogroups offers mail list services for free...

Maybe, but I would be far from surprised if spam trapping s/w also
notes the material came via Yahoo and treats it appropriately :-)

From AMO on 23/Sep/2004 00:53:
> "poster" <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>>Some hosting services offer mail lists, esp ones where the recipients get
>
> a
>
>>regular ('subscribed' reminder) message, have to confirm they've "opted
>
> in"
>
>>and can cancel whenever they want. There are other, perhaps expensive
>
> ways
>
>>to handle mailing lists, but it might be worth getting some hosting deal
>
> at
>
>>a tenner a year or so, to handle this, rather than messing with it all by
>>hand and spending time on workarounds for MS s/w to do it. Peter M.
>
>
> Thanx for everyone that posted a response to this.
>
> My friend isn't very I.T. literate and I was trying to find an easy solution
> for him. I also don't want it to be costly as his overheads are increasing.
>
> Whilst I understand NTL's reasons for limiting spam, it does cause my friend
> some grief.
>
> I was looking at some bulk email software and wondered whether that would
> also get around the problem.
>
> David's suggestion of PocoMail sounds like this might be the only easy way
> forward.
>
> I was going to get someone to write a piece of software to send them out one
> by one, but its a little tricky getting that software to know which email
> currently open in MS Outlook that needs to be sent en masse. There are
> various other problems going down the programming route also.
>
> AMO
>
>

The easiest solution is a web host that supplies mailing lists, some ISPs also
provide this (e.g. PlusNet). Alternatively use Yahoo Groups. Both of these have
already been mentioned.

Yahoo Groups is fine, I subscribe to several and they are generally pretty free
of spam. You can add a variety of options to get them completely free if you can
be bothered. For your purposes, you could make the group moderator posting only.
It works well and is free.

--
Julian Knight, http://www.knightnet.org.uk/
Sheffield, United Kingdom
Security, Directory, Messaging, Network & PC Consultant
Yahoo! IM=knighjm, Skype Internet Phone: callto://j.knight

From AMO on 23/Sep/2004 00:53:
> "poster" <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>>Some hosting services offer mail lists, esp ones where the recipients get
>
> a
>
>>regular ('subscribed' reminder) message, have to confirm they've "opted
>
> in"
>
>>and can cancel whenever they want. There are other, perhaps expensive
>
> ways
>
>>to handle mailing lists, but it might be worth getting some hosting deal
>
> at
>
>>a tenner a year or so, to handle this, rather than messing with it all by
>>hand and spending time on workarounds for MS s/w to do it. Peter M.
>
>
> Thanx for everyone that posted a response to this.
>
> My friend isn't very I.T. literate and I was trying to find an easy solution
> for him. I also don't want it to be costly as his overheads are increasing.
>
> Whilst I understand NTL's reasons for limiting spam, it does cause my friend
> some grief.
>
> I was looking at some bulk email software and wondered whether that would
> also get around the problem.
>
> David's suggestion of PocoMail sounds like this might be the only easy way
> forward.
>
> I was going to get someone to write a piece of software to send them out one
> by one, but its a little tricky getting that software to know which email
> currently open in MS Outlook that needs to be sent en masse. There are
> various other problems going down the programming route also.
>
> AMO
>
>
Sorry, I also should have said that I wouldn't bother with the Outlook
programming. I have done a fair bit of this and it is a painful experience at best.

If you want to go the programming route I suggest using some kind of scripting
language such as Python or locally installed PHP. These have libraries that
allow you to send emails so you could easily write a loop to send messages out
in groups of whatever you wanted.

--
Julian Knight, http://www.knightnet.org.uk/
Sheffield, United Kingdom
Security, Directory, Messaging, Network & PC Consultant
Yahoo! IM=knighjm, Skype Internet Phone: callto://j.knight

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 04:22:21 +0100, poster <us-(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>On 22 Sep 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, "Diane" wrote:
>
>>Yahoogroups offers mail list services for free...
>
>Maybe, but I would be far from surprised if spam trapping s/w also
>notes the material came via Yahoo and treats it appropriately :-)

I am in several Yahoo mailing lists, and have very rarely had a
problem.

When BTYahoo first introduced their Spam guard, some of them were
being trapped for the first few, but it didn't last long.

Plusnet are not marking any of them as Spam.

--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Computer - A device designed to speed and automate errors.

To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom