# Mass emails **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 28, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438 "2006-07-28T22:26:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/1 "2006-07-28T22:26:38Z")
Say we have 20k-50k users signed up for an email newsletter. Does anyone have any data on how well ActionMailer does with mass emails? How long would that take to send? Anything I should watch out for? Thanks, Joe ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/2 "2006-07-29T19:02:42Z")
seems to me you’d be better off setting up mailman and creating a new list with all those addresses. Then your app only has to send off one message to the list. Malman has years of work that’s gone in to handling all the edge cases like what to do when a user’s e-mail address is no longer valid. You don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel. > **[GNU Mailman](http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html)** > > GNU Mailman While i haven’t tried it, managing it’s subscriber list via your site shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Something to watch out for though is your isp cutting you off for being a spammer (all they’ll see is boatloads of e-mail traffic coming from your box). Warn them in advance. ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2006, 7:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/3 "2006-07-29T19:24:54Z")
Does it mean that mailman is useless when you need to send a customized email to each user? On 7/29/06, kate rhodes [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Something to watch out for though is your isp cutting you off for being a > > > Joe ## – Kent > **[DATANOISE.COM](https://www.datanoise.com/)** > > DATANOISE.COM - Contact us for any business inquiries ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/4 "2006-07-30T22:32:45Z")
On 7/29/06, Kent S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Does it mean that mailman is useless when you need to send a > customized email to each user? yes. Mailman is a mailing list server. Same message goes to everyone. But as the topic was a “newsletter” that seems appropriate to me. - kate = masukomi ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 5:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/5 "2006-07-31T05:49:47Z")
On 7/30/06, Steven Talcott S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > I am curious about this too as my application sends out ~10k customized > newsletters, once per week, as well as a trickle of mail the rest of the > time. > > It currently uses PHPMailer. I imagine ActionMailer is in the same > league. Does anyone know if performance is similar? > > During a campaign, I generally limit my pace to no more than 1000 per > hour and then only in off-peak hours. In my situtation, the client would like all the emails to be sent out at once. The email content is time sensitive. Joe ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/6 "2006-07-31T05:09:47Z")
kate rhodes wrote: > On 7/29/06, Kent S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > Does it mean that mailman is useless when you need to send a > > customized email to each user? > > yes. Mailman is a mailing list server. Same message goes to everyone. > But as > the topic was a “newsletter” that seems appropriate to me. I am curious about this too as my application sends out ~10k customized newsletters, once per week, as well as a trickle of mail the rest of the time. It currently uses PHPMailer. I imagine ActionMailer is in the same league. Does anyone know if performance is similar? During a campaign, I generally limit my pace to no more than 1000 per hour and then only in off-peak hours. Steven ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 8:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/7 "2006-07-31T08:37:07Z")
On 7/30/06, Steven Talcott S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I am curious about this too as my application sends out ~10k customized > newsletters, once per week, as well as a trickle of mail the rest of the > time. > > It currently uses PHPMailer. I imagine ActionMailer is in the same > league. Does anyone know if performance is similar? > > During a campaign, I generally limit my pace to no more than 1000 per > hour and then only in off-peak hours. AFAIK, there is no better solution in the case like this other then sending each email individually. I use ActionMailer with :sendmail delivery method, since if there is no problem with the delivery, sendmail doesn’t queue an email and transmit it immediately. I also use some other techniques like configuring several queues instead of default one, etc. ## – Kent > **[DATANOISE.COM](https://www.datanoise.com/)** > > DATANOISE.COM - Contact us for any business inquiries ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 9:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/8 "2006-07-31T09:08:27Z")
On 7/30/06, Kent S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > AFAIK, there is no better solution in the case like this other then > sending each email individually. I use ActionMailer with :sendmail > delivery method, since if there is no problem with the delivery, > sendmail doesn’t queue an email and transmit it immediately. I also > use some other techniques like configuring several queues instead of > default one, etc. How long, in your estimation, would it take to send 10k emails as quickly as possible? Is the CPU the bottleneck? Joe ---
**Author:** ![joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9dc877/32.png) [@joe-dumoulin](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/joe-dumoulin)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mass-emails/100438/9 "2006-08-03T14:23:17Z")
> How long, in your estimation, would it take to send 10k emails as > quickly as possible? Is the CPU the bottleneck? It’s probably more an issue of the network being a bottleneck. You’re going to have to do a dns look up for thousands of domains, then establish a connection to it, then transmit it. it’s just like reading 10k records from the db with seperate calls for each read. It’ll be wayyyyyy slower than one read that gets all 10k… except you don’t have that option with e-mail.