Mail merge in Gmail: send bulk B2B email, limits and rules

The quick answer

Mail merge in Gmail sends one email to many people, but each person gets their own copy with their own name and details filled in, and nobody sees who else received it. Gmail has a built-in mail merge on paid Google Workspace plans (Workspace Individual, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise and Education Standard or Plus): in a new message, click Use mail merge next to the "To:" line, add recipients from a Google Sheet, and type @ to insert merge tags. It allows up to 1,500 mail-merge recipients a day. A free @gmail.com account has no built-in mail merge, but Google's own Apps Script sample sends a merge from a Google Sheet, at up to 100 recipients a day.

That is enough for a careful B2B campaign: a few hundred well-chosen businesses a day, written to personally. It is not enough, and not meant, for blasting an All-India list of a lakh addresses. This guide shows each way to send bulk email from Gmail with Google's exact limits, how to turn an Excel contact list into a working merge, what India's rules and Gmail's sender rules ask of you, and, using Starleads' figures, how many businesses in each trade you can actually reach by email.

What mail merge in Gmail is, and what it is not

A mail merge joins a template and a list. You write one message with placeholders ("Dear @firstname", "your shop in @city"), and the tool sends a separate email to each row of the list with the placeholders replaced. Google's help page, Send personalized emails with mail merge (read on 4 November 2026), describes the built-in version: "each recipient gets a unique copy of the email in which the merge tags are replaced with your details", recipients "can't check who else you sent the message to", and replies come back "in separate threads", so every answer is its own conversation in your inbox.

Three things people often confuse with it:

• Putting everyone in Bcc. This sends one identical email with no personal greeting, every hidden address still counts towards your sending limit, and one slip into the To or Cc field shows everyone's address to everyone. Google's page also notes that mail merge "replaces multi-send mode in Gmail", the older way of sending one message separately to many people.
• A Google Contacts label or a Google Group. These are ways to keep a mailing list, not ways to personalise a message. A label is still useful: Google's mail merge page says you can "create a label in Google Contacts and group recipients", and adding the label in the "To:" line fills in everyone on it. So "how to create a mailing list in Gmail" has a simple answer: create a label in Google Contacts, add the contacts to it, and type the label's name in "To:". With mail merge turned on, each person still gets their own copy.
• An email marketing service. Tools built for newsletters and cold email send from their own servers, manage unsubscribes and bounces in bulk, and handle far larger volumes. Gmail's merge sends from your own mailbox, which is its strength (replies land where you work, and the email looks like a normal one-to-one message) and its limit (your mailbox's daily quota and reputation).

Four ways to send bulk email from Gmail, compared

The table sets out the routes that rank for "how to send bulk email in Gmail", with the limits Google publishes. Google's own pages say limits "can change without notice", so treat the numbers as of the date read.

Method	Account needed	Personalised?	Daily limit (Google's figure)	Best for
Gmail's built-in mail merge	Eligible paid Workspace plan	Yes: merge tags from Contacts or any Sheet column	1,500 mail-merge recipients a day, within the account's 2,000-message daily limit	Most small B2B teams on Workspace
Apps Script mail merge (Google's sample)	Any Google account; Workspace admins may need to approve it	Yes: {{Column name}} placeholders in a Gmail draft	100 recipients a day on a consumer account; 1,500 on Workspace	Free @gmail.com users who need a small, personalised send
Gmail add-ons from the Workspace Marketplace	Any; pricing set by each developer	Yes, usually with tracking and follow-ups	Your Gmail account's own sending limit still applies	People who want scheduling, open tracking or automatic follow-ups inside Gmail
Bcc to many addresses	Any	No	500 a day on a free account; on Workspace, up to 500 external recipients per message	Short notices to people who already know you, not sales email

Where the figures come from: the built-in merge and free-account limits are on Google's mail merge help page; the Workspace account limits are in Gmail sending limits in Google Workspace; the Apps Script limits are in Quotas for Google services, which lists "Email recipients per day" as 100 for consumer accounts and 1,500 for Google Workspace accounts (all read on 4 November 2026).

Gmail's sending limits, in detail

The limits decide how a campaign is planned, so it is worth knowing them precisely rather than trusting a number from a forum.

For the built-in mail merge

• Standard Gmail accounts have a daily send limit of 500 outgoing messages; work, school and Workspace Individual accounts have 2,000.
• With mail merge you can add up to 1,500 recipients in the "To" line of one message, and send to at most 1,500 recipients a day. Google's example: one message to 1,000 recipients and another to 500.
• Once regular and mail-merge emails together reach 1,500 in a day, no more mail merge can go out until the quota resets; the remaining 500 are kept for ordinary email, so your normal replies are not blocked.
• Only one address can go in Cc or Bcc, and it is copied on every outgoing email: a merge to 500 people with one Bcc address uses 1,000 of your daily sends. If you load recipients from a spreadsheet, you cannot add Cc or Bcc at all.
• There is no limit on the number of unique recipients you can contact in a month.

For Workspace accounts in general

Google's Workspace admin page lists a daily sending limit of 2,000 messages per user, "1,500 for mail merge", and 500 for trial accounts; up to 2,000 recipients per message, of which at most 500 can be external; and 2,000 unique external recipients a day. It adds that limits "are applied over a rolling 24-hour period, not a set time of day", and that after hitting one, "users can't send new messages for up to 24 hours". Accounts that send spam "might be permanently restricted from sending email". A trial account stays at the lower trial limits, which is a reason not to start a campaign on a Workspace account you opened yesterday.

What the limits mean in practice

At 1,500 a day, the arithmetic is simple: a list of 15,000 business email addresses takes ten working days at the full quota, and a careful sender should not use the full quota on a new mailbox anyway. On a free account with Apps Script, at 100 a day, it takes 150 days. So pick a list size your route can carry.

How many businesses you can reach by email: Starleads' figures

Most mail merge tutorials assume you already have a clean sheet of names and addresses. In Indian B2B sales the harder question comes first: how many businesses in your target trade even have an email address on record? The answer varies enormously by trade. The table uses Starleads' All-India lists and the share of rows that carry an email address, from Starleads' Indian business statistics (figures read on 4 November 2026). These are counts of contacts in Starleads' data, not an official census.

Trade (All-India list)	Contacts	With an email	Addresses (approx.)	Days at 1,500 a day
BPO & Call Centres	2,19,845	96.6%	2,12,370	142
Importers	1,08,764	94.7%	1,03,000	69
Hotels & Resorts	1,26,397	88.1%	1,11,356	75
Exporters	1,75,373	85.3%	1,49,593	100
Chartered Accountants & Tax Consultants	47,994	83.0%	39,835	27
Tour & Travel Agents	1,80,765	76.5%	1,38,285	93
Doctors & Clinics	2,65,071	39.5%	1,04,703	70
IT & Software Companies	64,547	34.1%	22,011	15
Real Estate Agents & Developers	1,24,149	17.4%	21,602	15
Beauty Parlours & Salons	94,611	15.8%	14,949	10
Grocery & Supermarkets	2,12,501	5.4%	11,475	8

"Addresses" is contacts multiplied by the email share, rounded; "days" is that number divided by Gmail's 1,500-a-day mail merge limit, rounded up, and assumes you use the whole quota every day, which you should not on a new mailbox.

Three lessons from these figures:

• Email works for trades that live on email. Importers, exporters, hotels, BPOs and chartered accountants deal with documents, bookings and clients by email, and more than four in five of their rows carry an address. A Gmail merge is a natural first channel for them.
• For shops and local services, email is the wrong first channel. Only 5.4% of grocery and supermarket rows and 15.8% of beauty parlour rows have an email, against 99.5% and 88.1% with a mobile number. For those trades, a call or a WhatsApp message to people who have opted in will reach far more of the market; our guide to calling data covers that route.
• An All-India list is too big for Gmail. Even the smaller lists above take weeks at the full quota. Use a city or state list, or narrow the All-India file by city, PIN code or category before you merge. A few hundred businesses in one city, written to properly, will teach you more in a week than a lakh of addresses ever will.

Live figures: importers, the most email-ready trade

Our Importers list holds 1,08,764 contacts today, 95% with an email address and 90% with a mobile number, across 267 cities, and it is also sold city by city (26 cities). City lists are the right size for a Gmail merge:

• Mumbai 30,695 contacts · 92% email · 88% mobile ₹499
• Bengaluru 6,758 contacts · 94% email · 96% mobile ₹499
• Chennai 4,866 contacts · 93% email · 83% mobile ₹499
• Pune 4,775 contacts · 96% email · 92% mobile ₹499
• Gurugram 4,767 contacts · 97% email · 97% mobile ₹499
• Kolkata 4,507 contacts · 96% email · 88% mobile ₹499
• Noida 3,832 contacts · 97% email · 96% mobile ₹499
• Ahmedabad 3,793 contacts · 96% email · 97% mobile ₹499
• Hyderabad 3,447 contacts · 96% email · 93% mobile ₹499
• Jaipur 1,575 contacts · 96% email · 92% mobile ₹499
• Faridabad 1,550 contacts · 97% email · 93% mobile ₹499
• Vadodara 1,132 contacts · 97% email · 87% mobile ₹499

Other trades with high email coverage

• Importers 1,08,764 contacts · 95% email · 90% mobile ₹1,999
• Exporters 1,75,373 contacts · 85% email · 71% mobile ₹1,999
• Hotels & Resorts 1,26,397 contacts · 88% email · 95% mobile ₹1,999
• Chartered Accountants & Tax Consultants 47,994 contacts · 83% email · 97% mobile ₹1,999
• BPO & Call Centres 2,19,845 contacts · 97% email · 98% mobile ₹1,999

Step by step: a mail merge from an Excel contact list

Gmail's merge reads Google Sheets, not Excel files directly, and it is fussy about format. These steps take an Excel file, such as a Starleads list or your own customer sheet, to a sent campaign. They follow the built-in mail merge; the Apps Script route is described after them.

1. Choose the slice you will email. Open the Excel file and filter it to one city, one PIN-code area or one category, and to rows that have an email address. Delete duplicate email addresses (Excel's Data > Remove Duplicates on the email column). Keep the batch to a size you can follow up personally.
2. Put the data on the first tab. Google's help says contact information "must be in the first tab of your spreadsheet and can only contain text". Starleads' workbooks open with an Overview sheet, then the Data sheet and a Field Guide, so move the Data sheet to the front, or copy it into a new file on its own, before you go further.
3. Upload it to Google Drive and save it as a Google Sheet. Then clear hidden formats: Google's troubleshooting advice is to copy the data, create a new Google Sheet, and use Edit > Paste special > Values only. Formats carried over from Excel are a common reason a merge fails to read the sheet.
4. Make the column headers simple. Merge tags are named after column headers. If a header contains anything other than letters or numbers, Gmail refers to that column by its position instead ("@A" for the first column). Rename headers like "Contact Person" and "Business Name" to plain words such as FirstName and Company. Email addresses with special characters are treated as invalid, so fix or delete those rows.
5. Prepare a first-name column, or plan for blanks. Business lists often have a company name but no contact person. The merge asks you to map an Email column and a First name column (Last name is optional). If a row has no first name, Gmail shows an error and lets you enter a default value, so "Hi @firstname" can become "Hi team" for those rows. Alternatively, write the greeting around the Company column, which every row has.
6. Write the draft. In Gmail, click Compose, then Use mail merge on the right of the "To:" line, turn on Mail merge, click Add from a spreadsheet, choose the sheet, select the Email and First name columns and click Finish. Type @ in the body to insert tags. Keep the message short: who you are, why you are writing to this business in particular, one clear question, and your full name, company, phone number and address.
7. Avoid the features mail merge cannot use. Merge tags do not work in subject lines, in hyperlinked text or in plain-text mode, and mail merge cannot be used with replies, forwards, schedule send or confidential mode. Do not attach a brochure: each recipient gets a copy, and Google's own example is that a 10 MB file sent to 500 people uses about 5 GB of storage. Link to a file in Google Drive or on your website instead.
8. Test on yourself. Put your own address and a colleague's in a two-row test sheet and send. Read it on a phone. Check every merge tag filled in and the unsubscribe link appears.
9. Send in small batches at first. Start with 30 to 50 a day from a mailbox that has a normal history of real conversations, and raise the number only while bounces and spam complaints stay low. Gmail lets you send 1,500; that is a ceiling, not a target.
10. Work the replies and clean the list. Replies arrive as separate threads. Remove every address that bounces, and honour every "please don't email" at once, even if it arrives as a reply rather than through the unsubscribe link. Record what each business said in your CRM or sheet before the next batch.

The free route: Google's Apps Script sample

If you use a free @gmail.com address, Google's developer page Create a mail merge with Gmail & Google Sheets (read on 4 November 2026) gives a ready script attached to a sample spreadsheet. You make a copy of the sheet, put addresses in its Recipients column, write a Gmail draft whose placeholders match the column headers in curly braces, such as {{First name}} (case sensitive, and they "must exactly match the column headers"), then run Mail Merge > Send Emails from the sheet's menu and paste the draft's subject line. The script writes a timestamp in an Email Sent column for each row it sends. Google's page notes the sample is "subject to the email limits" of its quota page: 100 recipients a day on a consumer account. When you authorise it, Google may warn that the app isn't verified, because it is your own copy of the script; read the code or ask someone who can before you approve access to your mailbox.

Gmail's sender rules: what keeps you out of spam

Mail merge sends from Google's servers, so the technical side of delivery is partly done for you. The rest is up to your domain and your behaviour. Google's Email sender guidelines (read on 4 November 2026) set the rules for email sent to personal Gmail accounts, and its FAQ says that "starting November 2025, Gmail is ramping up its enforcement on non-compliant traffic", with messages that fail the requirements facing "temporary and permanent rejections".

Requirement	All senders	Senders of 5,000+ a day to Gmail accounts	What it means for a Gmail mail merge
Email authentication	SPF or DKIM	SPF, DKIM and DMARC (policy can be "none")	On @gmail.com, Google handles it. On your own domain through Workspace, turn on DKIM and publish SPF and DMARC records
Spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools	Below 0.3%	Below 0.3%	Fewer than three complaints per thousand emails; writing to the right businesses is the only reliable way
Unsubscribe	Recommended	One-click unsubscribe, plus a visible link in the body, for marketing messages	Gmail's mail merge adds a unique unsubscribe link to each email automatically
TLS, valid DNS and RFC 5322 format	Required	Required	Handled by Gmail's servers
From: header	Don't impersonate Gmail	Must align with the SPF or DKIM domain for DMARC	Mail merge cannot send from a secondary domain or domain alias, which keeps the From: address aligned

A Gmail mail merge cannot reach 5,000 a day, but the stricter column is still a good standard to meet, and it is what you will need anyway if your volume grows into an email service. The unsubscribe link deserves a note: Google's mail merge page says a person who unsubscribes "can still receive messages sent from you without mail merge turned on" or from colleagues on the same domain, and you get an email notification for each unsubscribe but "can't get a list of all unsubscribed recipients". Keep your own suppression list in the sheet, and check it before every send, from every mailbox. Our guide to SPF, DKIM and DMARC explains the three DNS records for Indian businesses step by step.

India's rules for bulk business email

Email sits under a different set of rules from calls and SMS in India, and it is easy to get this wrong in both directions.

• DND (NCPR) does not cover email. TRAI's Customer Preference Registration page (read on 4 November 2026) lists the modes a person can block: voice calls and SMS, auto-dialer calls with a recorded announcement or a live agent, and robo-calls, registered through 1909, the app or the web portal. Email is not one of them, and there is no DND register to scrub an email list against.
• But calls and SMS that follow the email are covered. If your plan is "email first, then call the ones who opened", the calls fall under TRAI's commercial communication regulations: check DND before promotional calls (our DND check guide explains how), and register on DLT before any bulk SMS (our DLT registration guide). WhatsApp messages need the recipient's opt-in.
• Named addresses are personal data. An email such as ramesh@company.in, or a proprietor's own Gmail address, identifies a person, so India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act applies to how you collect, keep and use it, even in B2B sales. Say who you are and where you got the address, make opting out easy, and delete what you no longer need. Our DPDP Act guide for B2B sales explains the duties and when they start.
• Gmail's own policies apply on top. Google's sending-limits page warns that accounts that send spam may be restricted for good. For a small business whose only mailbox is in Gmail, losing it costs far more than any campaign earns.

This is general information from the pages named, not legal advice.

Mistakes that get a Gmail merge flagged

Mistake	What happens	Fix
Sending the whole quota on day one from a new mailbox	A sudden jump in volume from an account with no history looks like a compromised or spam account	Start with 30 to 50 a day and grow over weeks
Never removing bounced addresses	Bounces tell mail providers the list is stale	Delete every bounced address after each batch; use an email checker on old lists
A large attachment	Every copy carries the file, using storage on each one, and heavy messages to strangers are more likely to be filtered	Link to a Drive file or web page
One message to every trade and city	Readers can tell it is not for them and mark it as spam	One template per trade, mentioning what that trade buys
Hiding who you are	Distrust, complaints and, under the DPDP Act, a weak footing	Full name, company, phone and address in every email

For the words themselves, our cold email templates for B2B sales give five short, tested structures with subject lines and follow-ups. For checking a list before you send, see our comparison of email verification tools. When your volume outgrows a mailbox, our guide to cold email software compares the tools built for it.

Where Starleads fits, and where it doesn't

Starleads does not sell email software. It sells the lists a mail merge works through: ready-made Excel files of businesses and professionals by industry, state and city, with names, mobile numbers, emails and addresses where available. City, state and specialisation lists cost ₹499 each and an industry's All-India list with 10,000 or more contacts costs ₹1,999, plus 18% GST. Every list page shows 60 real contacts and how many records have an email, and the 60-contact sample downloads free as an Excel file, which is also a good way to rehearse the steps above before you pay.

Be clear about the limits. Nobody tests each mailbox before a list is sold, so some emails will bounce. In October 2026 about 3.7 lakh addresses on domains that no longer receive mail were removed and common typing mistakes were fixed, but individual mailboxes are not checked, so send in small batches and remove bounces as they come. Starleads sells business contacts only, never lists of private individuals, so it is not a source for consumer email campaigns. And a list does not replace the sender rules above: good addresses sent carelessly will still end up in spam. Our guide to business email lists explains what to check in any list before you buy one.

Questions people ask

Can I do a mail merge in Gmail?

Yes. On an eligible paid Google Workspace plan (Workspace Individual, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard or Plus, Education Standard or Plus), Gmail has mail merge built in: click Use mail merge next to the "To:" line in a new message. On a free Gmail account, use Google's Apps Script mail merge sample with a Google Sheet, or an add-on from the Workspace Marketplace.

Is mail merge for Gmail free?

The built-in feature comes with the eligible Workspace plans, which are paid. Google's Apps Script sample is free on any Google account, with a limit of 100 recipients a day on a consumer account. Marketplace add-ons are made by other developers, who set their own prices and limits; check the listing before you install one.

Why don't I have a mail merge option in Gmail?

The usual reasons: your account is a free @gmail.com account or on a Workspace plan not in Google's eligible list; you are replying or forwarding rather than composing a new message; you are in plain-text mode; or you are on the phone app, since Google's steps are for Gmail on a computer.

How many emails can I send with Gmail mail merge per day?

Up to 1,500 recipients a day, counted together with your ordinary sent mail, within the account's overall 2,000-message daily limit. A free Gmail account can send 500 messages a day in total, and the Apps Script sample is limited to 100 recipients a day on such an account. Limits run over a rolling 24 hours.

How do I mail merge in Gmail from Excel?

Upload the Excel file to Google Drive, save it as a Google Sheet, make sure the contact data is on the first tab with plain-text column headers, and paste it as values only into a fresh sheet if the merge cannot read it. Then pick that sheet with Add from a spreadsheet in Gmail's mail merge.

How do I create a mailing list in Gmail?

Create a label in Google Contacts and add the people to it. Typing the label's name in the "To:" line adds everyone on it; with mail merge turned on, each person gets their own copy and cannot see the others.

Do I need to check DND before sending bulk email in India?

No. TRAI's DND register covers calls and SMS, not email. You do need to follow Gmail's sender rules, let people unsubscribe easily, and handle named addresses in line with the DPDP Act. If you follow up by phone or SMS, DND and DLT rules apply to those messages.