Use built-in mail merge in Gmail to personalize emails

You can use mail merge in Gmail to send personalized emails with merge tags like @firstname and @lastname.

• When an email is sent, the merge tags are replaced with the appropriate name for each recipient.

Before you start

You can use multi-send and mail merge on desktop devices with these Google Workspace editions:

• Workspace Individual
• Business Standard
• Business Plus
• Enterprise Starter
• Enterprise Standard
• Enterprise Plus
• Education Standard
• Education Plus

If you don't find multi-send in Gmail, contact your Google Workspace administrator.

Create a personalized email with mail merge

Multi-send mode must be turned on to use mail merge. Learn how to use multi-send for email marketing, newsletters, and announcements.

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. In the top left, click Compose .
3. From the toolbar at the bottom, click Turn multi-send mode on/off .
4. Enter your email draft.
5. To find a list of available merge tags, press @. 
6. To filter the list, enter the name of a merge tag.
   • Supported merge tags include:
     • First name: @firstname
     • Last name: @lastname
     • Full name: @fullname
     • Email address: @email
7. To select a merge tag, press Enter.

Send email with multi-send turned on

When you send the multi-send email, Gmail delivers a copy of the message to each recipient. For example, each recipient finds their first name instead of the @firstname tag. 

If you add recipients:

• From Google Contacts- Gmail uses the first and last name saved in Contacts. 
• Who aren't in your Google Contacts- Mail merge guesses the first and last name based on how you enter the name. 
  • For example, if you enter “Lisa Brown <[e-mail]>” as a recipient, Gmail uses “Lisa” as @firstname and “Brown” as @lastname. 

To make sure Gmail uses the correct names in the email, add recipients to your Google Contacts before sending.

Learn about default values for merge tags

If you use a merge tag but one or more recipients doesn’t have a value for that tag, when you try to send the email, you’ll get an error dialog. For example, you’ll get an error if you try to email “Sam <[e-mail]>” and use the @lastname merge tag.

In this situation, you can:

• Enter a default value in the error dialog. 
  • For example, for recipients who don’t have a first name, “Hi @firstname” can be “Hi friend.”
• Go back to the draft and:
  • Edit the recipient info to add the missing value in the Recipients box or in Google Contacts.
  • Remove any recipient with missing values from the Recipients box.

Understand mail merge limitations

Merge tags are not supported in:

• Email subject lines
• Hyperlinked text or URLs