Previewing the result of a mail merge before sending

Learn how to generate a campaign with a preview delay and verify the generated emails before sending.

Description

If you would like to verify the result of a mail merge for all recipients (vs. just seeing a test email with the "Send Test Email" function) then you can specify a preview delay. This will generate all messages to your Drafts folder, but delay their delivery by a number of seconds, so you can check and delete them if necessary.

Open advanced options

Toggle advanced options

In the campaign manager select the link titled "Show advanced campaign features" to open the advanced options.

Options: Seconds preview delay

All messages will be generated but set to delay their sending by the specified amount. This also works in conjunction with delay between messages. In that case the first message is delayed by the preview delay, the second by preview delay + number of seconds between messages and so on.

Your Outlook does not have to be open for the messages to be sent after the preview delay.

Maximum value

The maximum preview delay that can be set between messages is 10 minutes (600 seconds).

Preview campaign by Sending to Drafts Folder

Once the delay is set, first send a test message if you haven"t already, and then send the campaign. The emails will be generated but not be sent until the delay has passed.

The message will remain in your Drafts folder for the specified amount of time. As long as they are in the Drafts folder, they have not been sent.

Note: This feature will NOT apply test emails. Test emails will be sent immediately.

Deleting the messages from Drafts folder in case of error

If you want to cancel the campaign, you simply delete the messages from the Drafts folder before the delay has passed.

WARNING if the campaign is large (by number of recipients or by attachment size) and you delete the messages from the Drafts folder, it may take a while for Outlook to delete them. Outlook clients synchronize the changes you make to their servers. Only if the servers know about your deletion, then the sending will be prevented. But there is a simple way to guarantee that the messages are deleted. Login to https://outlook.office.com and delete the items there. This is done directly on the server without delay.