# How do I review and unselect recipients before sending?

> Review every recipient before you send and unselect anyone you want to skip, using per-row checkboxes, filters, search, sorting, and select-all.

## Description

Before you send a campaign you can review every recipient loaded from your spreadsheet and unselect anyone you want to skip. This is useful for removing a few bad rows, sending to a subset of a larger list, or excluding people who should not receive this particular message, all without editing your spreadsheet.

## Open the recipient preview

After you [upload your spreadsheet](https://www.securemailmerge.com/help/getting-started/), the recipient preview shows every row that was loaded. Each column from your spreadsheet is shown so you can check that the data looks right before you send.

## Include or exclude a recipient

Every row has an **include or exclude checkbox**. Recipients are included by default. Untick a row to skip it, and tick it again to add it back. The email is only generated and sent for recipients that are included.

## Find recipients quickly

For larger lists, you can narrow the preview to find the recipients you care about:

- **Search** across the table to jump to a name, email address, or any other value.
- **Per-column filters** let you show only the rows that match a value in a specific column (for example only recipients in a certain country or plan).
- **Sorting** lets you order the table by any column, ascending or descending.

## Select all respects your current filter

The **select-all** control ticks or unticks every row that is currently shown. When a filter or search is active, select-all only applies to the rows that match, so you can include or exclude a whole group in one click without touching the recipients you have filtered out.

## Live count of included recipients

A **live count** shows how many recipients are currently included. It updates as you tick and untick rows, so you always know exactly how many emails will be sent before you start.

## What happens to skipped recipients

Excluded recipients are not emailed, but they are not forgotten. They are recorded as **"Skipped"** in the [send report](https://www.securemailmerge.com/help/downloading-the-send-report/) so you have a complete record of who received the campaign and who was left out.

## Your selection locks once sending begins

Once the campaign starts sending, your selection **locks** and can no longer be changed. This keeps the send consistent with what you reviewed. If you need to change who is included, pause or finish the campaign and start a new one.

  Note: campaigns you created and saved before this feature was introduced may not support unselecting individual recipients if their rows do not carry a stable identifier. Re-uploading your spreadsheet into a new campaign restores full per-recipient control.

## See also

- [Getting started with SecureMailMerge](https://www.securemailmerge.com/help/getting-started/)
- [Creating your mail merge template](https://www.securemailmerge.com/help/creating-a-mail-merge-template/)
- [Previewing emails before sending](https://www.securemailmerge.com/help/sending-mail-merge-with-message-preview/)