Automator Group Mailer - please help

[KateKate]

Hello everyone

I am at the end of my tether. I want to send an email to a group of about 50 people, which is personalised at the very least with their name. (so that each email says "Dear Bob" or their name, and that they can't tell it's gone to loads of other people).

I am using Mac Mail and a Macbook Air running OS X 10.8.2 (12C3012).

I am new to Macs so maybe doing something stupid!

I have a smart group set up in my contacts with all their details.

I also want to attach a small pdf file to the email

I have spend ALL DAY trying to make this work through Automator, using a small test group.

I've tried starting with a message with the content, subject and attachment, set up in drafts, specifying this in automator, specifying contacts, going through group mailer and specifying the greeting and then to 'send outgoing messages'. in this case it says there is no outgoing message.

I've tried starting by writing the message in automator, finding and specifying the file to attach, specifying the contacts and then using group mailer to specify the greeting, then sending outgoing messages: in this case, it says "unrecognized selector sent to instance" and has a load of numbers.

I can see from the internet that lots of people have had similar problems, going back years but I can't find a solution. I really don't understand coding or Apple Script or anything but am willing to try anything! I want to be able to do this on a fairly regular basis so having a solution would be really amazing.

essentially all I want to do is a mail merge on email with an attachment (Ideally I would personalise it more by using fields for their organisation name in the body of the text, but I'd settle for just being able to send the email right now!) ... can anyone help me...???

thank you all in advance

Kate x

 

[Kaveman]

To be honest adding that personal name is very difficult and will probably take more time than writing 50 emails by hand. AppleScript can do this.

To send without others in the a Group knowing:
Mail > Preferences > Composing > Addressing: ensure When sending to a Group, show all members is Unchecked.

 

[KateKate]

To be honest adding that personal name is very difficult and will probably take more time than writing 50 emails by hand. AppleScript can do this.

To send without others in the a Group knowing:
Mail > Preferences > Composing > Addressing: ensure When sending to a Group, show all members is Unchecked.

thank you! it just seems bizarre that such a small and useful thing is SO hard - especially when it's standard practice with other packages...

does anyone have any apple script that I can use to make this happen?

thanks again
Kate

 

[Kaveman]

other packages...

not sure what packages you mean, but you could try the App store for something that may do it.

You could try searching the web for Mail/Addressbook scripts. Sorry in the run up to Christmas I don't have time to do any custom work.

 

[KateKate]

not sure what packages you mean, but you could try the App store for something that may do it.

You could try searching the web for Mail/Addressbook scripts. Sorry in the run up to Christmas I don't have time to do any custom work.

Thank you - I just meant with word and outlook mailmerging is really simple so it seems strange that it's so hard to do with the mac mail package.

I will keep searching! there must be a way to make this work - I'll put any solutions up here if I find one...

merry christmas!

 

[Kaveman]

Its important not to confuse a Consumer product with an Business product. Mail is a personal consumer product. If you want the Microsoft products just buy them, they have great Mac products, but they also come with the Microsoft headaches.