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Group e-mails no longer work

  • 5 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 27 views
  • Last reply by Marje

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I have been sending out e-mails to a Group for years. But now, possibly since the latest update of Thunderbird (now 38.1.0), the names of the Group do not appear when selected, and I get an error message telling me that <name of group> is not a valid e-mail.

I resorted to opening the Group in my Address book, and selecting Write, but this puts each name into a separate "To" field. In order to change them all to "Bcc", I had to change each one individually.

Any ideas?

I have been sending out e-mails to a Group for years. But now, possibly since the latest update of Thunderbird (now 38.1.0), the names of the Group do not appear when selected, and I get an error message telling me that <name of group> is not a valid e-mail. I resorted to opening the Group in my Address book, and selecting Write, but this puts each name into a separate "To" field. In order to change them all to "Bcc", I had to change each one individually. Any ideas?

All Replies (5)

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tried using the contact side bar in the compose window. F9 toggles it.

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Matt said

tried using the contact side bar in the compose window. F9 toggles it.

This is how I've been doing it all along, but now when I select a Group, the e-mails in that Group are not displayed and it can't be sent.

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I suspect that your Mailing List is corrupted, which is something that happens rather too often in Thunderbird.

I'd suggest, reluctantly, that you create a new Mailing List. You may be able to drag-and-drop the members of the old list into the new, so it may not require very much work.

There are add-ons that let you set all correspondents named in a message at once, so you can set them all to Bcc: collectively. Or there is an add-on called UseBccInstead, which at some threshold number of correspondents warns you and can then switch them all over to Bcc.

I don't use Mailing Lists very often myself. I don't like not being able to see the names of individual correspondents. I also find that they are fragile and break too easily. If your use is occasional and doesn't require the use of a large number of addressees (approximately 60) , then you may find that either of these add-ons gives you a smoother ride.

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Zenos said

I suspect that your Mailing List is corrupted, which is something that happens rather too often in Thunderbird. I'd suggest, reluctantly, that you create a new Mailing List. You may be able to drag-and-drop the members of the old list into the new, so it may not require very much work. There are add-ons that let you set all correspondents named in a message at once, so you can set them all to Bcc: collectively. Or there is an add-on called UseBccInstead, which at some threshold number of correspondents warns you and can then switch them all over to Bcc. I don't use Mailing Lists very often myself. I don't like not being able to see the names of individual correspondents. I also find that they are fragile and break too easily. If your use is occasional and doesn't require the use of a large number of addressees (approximately 60) , then you may find that either of these add-ons gives you a smoother ride.
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Thank you, it looks as if that's what I'll have to do, unless anyone comes up with a simpler solution. The next time I want to send to the Group will be at the end of next week, so I'll try it and let you know if it works.