How to Send Email to Multiple Recipients Individually

You can send email to multiple recipients individually with one email each from a saved template for a few people, mail merge when each needs their own details, or an email platform for a list you email again. All three give every person a separate copy with only their own address in To.

Bcc (blind carbon copy) hides the other recipients, but everyone gets the same greeting and content.

A made-up lettings agency in Reading shows how the choice works. It has to email 6 contractors, 410 tenants and 260 landlords, each group about something different.

Which method fits your email?

Three questions settle it: how many people you are writing to, whether each email needs their own details, and whether it is marketing. The table matches the answers to a method, using the agency's four emails.

The Gmail figure comes from Google's mail merge help page, checked on 25 October 2026.

Does Bcc send email to multiple recipients individually?

Bcc hides the recipient list, but it does not personalise each copy. Everyone receives the same To line, usually your own address.

The greeting cannot name anyone, and a recipient who uses Gmail is even told they were added by Bcc (Gmail Help).

The full Bcc list is not normally included in the delivered copies. Email systems remove that header or make separate copies, as RFC 5322, section 3.6.3 explains.

The risk is pasting the 410 addresses into To or Cc by mistake. The cases the Information Commission's Office (ICO) fined or reprimanded, set out in what Cc and Bcc mean, show what happens when recipients can see the list.

For 410 tenants, Start mail merge does the same job with no field to get wrong. On an eligible Workspace plan, Gmail's mail merge used without tags gives the same result.

Keep Bcc for a mailbox that has neither. Even a personal Gmail account takes all 410 tenants in one Bcc email, under its cap of 500 recipients per email (Gmail Help).

Writing to a handful of people: one email each

As a rule of thumb, up to about ten people can each get their own email, sent by hand. The ICO, the UK data protection regulator, gives no number. Its email and security guidance, dated 30 August 2023, does name separate emails as an option when there are only a few recipients.

A saved template makes it quick. You write the email once, open it for each person, change the name or a line, and send.

• Gmail on a computer: turn templates on under Settings > See all settings > Advanced. In a compose window, More options > Templates > Save draft as template stores the email, and Insert template brings it back (Gmail Help).
• New Outlook: on the Message ribbon, select Mail template > Save email as template. Each new email then starts from Home > New > Mail from template. Microsoft says the feature needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription (Microsoft Support).

Each contractor then gets an ordinary email, and their reply comes back to you alone.

If the contractors should see each other, say to agree a call-out rota, one email with everyone in To is simpler. "Hi Sam, Priya and Tom" suits three names; for six, "Hi all" reads better.

Mail merge: a separate copy with each person's details

Mail merge turns one template and a spreadsheet into a separate email for every row. It is built into Word and into some Gmail accounts.

Word's merge fills in fields such as «Inspection_date» from the sheet. Microsoft says it needs classic Outlook for Windows to send the merged emails (Microsoft Support).

In Gmail, the Use mail merge button sits beside the To line on eligible paid Google Workspace plans, never on a free @gmail.com account. Tags such as @firstname work in the body but not in the subject.

Neither merge attaches a different file to each person. Word cannot attach files to merged emails (Microsoft Support), and Gmail copies one attachment into every message. A file per landlord goes in as a sharing link in its own spreadsheet column.

For the inspection dates, a merge is the right size: one email a year to each landlord, naming their property and their date.

When a service email becomes marketing

A message about someone's tenancy, booking or order is a service message, but a sales pitch added to it can turn it into marketing.

The ICO's guide to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) puts it this way. Information a customer needs about a current contract or a past purchase is not direct marketing. Once it carries significant promotion, such as extra services or a push to renew, the marketing rules apply (ICO, updated 20 August 2025).

So the inspection email stays a service email until the agency adds a paragraph selling its rent guarantee. Most of its landlords are private individuals, so from then on each one must have given consent or fall under the soft opt-in.

Every marketing email also needs a working way to opt out. With a merge, keeping that list is your job. Word's merge has no opt-out link, and Gmail's covers only merges from the mailbox that sent it.

We are summarising the ICO's guidance here, not giving legal advice. The consent side is set out in UK GDPR and PECR for email marketing.

Sending individually from an email platform

An email platform sends one campaign to a whole list as separate copies and keeps the opt-outs for you. That makes it the tool for regular marketing email. For the agency, the job is the monthly newsletter to its 260 landlords and 640 prospective landlords who signed up on its website.

In MailGraf, the audience is made of contacts, not addresses pasted into a field. A landlord on both the Landlords list and the Newsletter list is counted once and receives one copy. Estimated recipients on the Audience step shows that final number.

One newsletter can also differ by group. With Show to set on one row, the rent guarantee offer appears for the Landlords list only, a simple form of dynamic email content.

When the landlord sheet comes in through a file import, columns mapped to a contact or custom field can go in with Insert tag.

Of the agency's four emails, only the landlord newsletter needs a platform. Compare its monthly send volume with the allowances on the pricing page.