hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4525.txt

Episode: 4525
Title: Using mail merge in thunderbird
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4525/hpr4525.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:16 (official HPR transcript)

---

This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4525, for 2025-12-05
Today's show is entitled, "Using mail merge in thunderbird"
The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:08:13
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "Use thunderbird to send out multiple emails based on a csv file"
Hi everybody, my name is Ken Falon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio and yes, it's that time of year where we're start planning the new year show
Normally I send out the emails to all the hosts and the other podcasters
We're involved in the free labor open source hacking scene Linux scene to invite them and their listeners to join the event
And normally we forget let's face it both this time upward in reminder of my calendar to do that and instead of sending out all the emails one at a time
I wanted to use a mail merge program and I was thinking there's got to be something in Thunderbird to allow me to do this
And there is if you go to the add-on add-ons for Thunderbird.net link in the show notes
You get a link to this mail merge program that was written by Alexander Bergman. I would like Firefox where you can just click and install from there
You need to first download it and then you can go into Thunderbird and I always tend to forget where exactly in Thunderbird.net is so that's why I'm kind of recording the show
So tools add-ons and themes within Thunderbird and then where it says manager extensions
A button, a cog, a cog gear wheel type thing, tool thread-ons and it says install add-on from file and that will allow you to install the mail merge program
So once you've done that if you've ever used a mail merge program before it'll read in from in this case it'll read in from a database or a CSV file or JSON file or a Microsoft Excel
And each column is a different field so it'll go across the row under your like email first name last name
Teleform number or something you could use the delimitor which is squiggly brackets squiggly brackets primary email squiggly brackets where primary email is the field name at the top
Then it will create an email for each row using the values that are in each of the columns
So it's not that complicated. In my case, I'm just using the email address and what I've got is like my email address cannot fall under the head
And then on the very first line I've just got the word primary email
I'm using that as the delimitor so then in my mail program I create a new email, but instead of writing cannot fall under a I put in
Cardi brackets curly bracket also to opening curly brackets primary email with the cases exactly like they are on the first line of my CSV file comma separation of value file
And two closing curly brackets and then I put in my subject low and then the body is world and then I press the mail merge thing and then that mail merge button within Thunderbird is on the email
The image of this and the show notes, but you won't get it you won't you'll be able to get everything from this so the source
It's got four different sections source attachments back and send so the source allows you to select the sources in the dress book see it CSV file JSON file or Excel spreadsheet which I've already told you about
I'm going to browse on the CSV and select its UTFAs and fields and images and automatic so nothing nothing crazy there. I'm not going to be sent on the attachment, but I guess you could
The batch size would be if your email provider wants to is looking for spam and does someone like thousands of emails coming in at the one time
So what I did there was I just added three seconds and set it random and they start on the stop not sure what they do, but it's pretty much worked for me.
Then the send we have three different types of delivery modes save as draft we'll just save the thing as a draft saved later, which is the default and send now which I'm
Which will give you a warning as I'm only using test addresses. I'm just going to send now when I press send I get the our warning message and then I press start and then there is a random
Three second delay as it sends out the six email must just that come in and then the emails just go
Each of them are sent individually as separate, but if I wanted them and I see that I received all the email addresses to myself
Which is fantastic and if I wanted to do the same thing again, I will go open curly brackets and two closing curly brackets and
This time I'm just going to select the same file and instead of actually sending them I'm going to use the save later option and
It makes no sense to have any of the batch options there because they're just going to go into my inbox. So when I do that, it pops up I press start and there in my local box folder and there I can review them and I can right click on them, edit them further
So
Cool utility let's face at this show was more reminder for me that this is what I need to use next year when I forget so for those of you who don't know they
New year show will be running from the first time zone going into the last that's a total of
37 times zones and spanning
26 hours or something something notes like that and what we do is we come together on the mobile chat
Then that gets recorded and released
Laser on was a podcast so
Some of the ground rules you must use push to talk and a headset so please just don't come on and
Run the audio for everybody
There's no way we can fix 26 hours of audio so head says push to talk if you can't that's fine
You're just going to go into listen mode
You got to be polite so when you enter the room
Please don't interrupt an ongoing conversation wait for a pause on the conversation and say hi
It's quite common for people that you might know to join as they wish to speak with other people in the room
They may have been waiting all year for this chance to meet so please give people the space to have their conversations
The next thing is do not introduce the time zones. There are lots of time zones and adjust interrupts the flow of the conversation and would
Put trunk aid silence. It doesn't matter anyway. It's all going to get truncated down. Don't monopolize the conversation
As I said, people lots of people are coming on there
So if you find that you're talking too much just step back
If you're planning on being there the whole time
You know just don't don't bother even talking if the flow is going just wait until it dies down a bit
And then say hi to new people coming in that's your role. Don't fill dead air
Truncate silence will do is there's no need to fill dead air just let it be and there's no need to mention that there's dead air people
What know if you didn't mention it truncate silence would kick in nobody would ever know so be respectful to each other and remember that the attendance of the new year shall
Does not
Constitute issue itself and everything is released under CC by essay
Okay, so that is tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org.
Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
If you ever thought of recording podcast, click on our upload link
to find out how easy it is.
Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an AnHonestHost.com, the Internet Archive,
rsync.net, and our mirror network.
Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.