Overview
If you need to send an email to many recipients but want to personalize the email for each recipient (for example, you want to address each recipient by first name), you can do this using Microsoft Word's mail function in combination with your Microsoft Outlook account.
To follow our steps below to set up email using mail merge, you will need the following:
- A spreadsheet (can be an Excel sheet or a generic .csv file) containing recipient data
- A Word document containing the content for your email
- An Outlook account (either your individual USC account or an org account)
Setting up a mail merge on a Windows PC
Quick guide
Step 1: Create your documents
- If you haven't already done so, open Microsoft Excel and create a spreadsheet of recipient data. Use the first row to label each column, and make sure that there is a column for recipient email addresses.
- Open Microsoft Word and compose your email message. You can use placeholder text for the parts of your message that you plan to personalize/populate from the spreadsheet of recipient data.
Step 2: Set up your email message
- In your Microsoft Word document, click on the Mailings tab.
- Click Start Mail Merge and select E-mail Messages from the dropdown menu.
- Click Select Recipients and select Use an Existing List… from the dropdown menu.
- Locate and select the spreadsheet you want to use.
- Click OK.
- You can now begin replacing your placeholder text with the corresponding fields from your spreadsheet. For each field:
- Select the placeholder text.
- Click Insert Merge Field.
- Select the name of the column replacing the placeholder text.
- Once you are done inserting merge fields, click Preview Results. Use the left and right arrows to preview each recipient's personalized email message.
Step 3: Finalize and send
- Once you are happy with how the merged email messages look, click Finish & Merge. Select Send Email Messages… from the dropdown menu.
- The "Merge to E-mail" window opens. Fill out the fields:
-
To: (May already be filled in) Select the name of the column containing the recipient email addresses.
-
Subject line: Type the text you want to appear in the subject line of your email.
-
Mail format: Make sure HTML is selected.
- Note that there is no option to change the "from" field of your email: Word will use whichever Outlook account you have set as your default. To change the "from" field of your email, please skip down to the section titled "Changing the default 'from' email address."
- Click OK.
- You can now open Microsoft Outlook and check your Sent Mail to make sure that the emails successfully sent. You're all set!
Detailed guide (with screenshots)
Step 1: Create your documents
- If you haven't already done so, open Microsoft Excel and create a spreadsheet of recipient data. Use the first row to label each column, and make sure that there is a column for recipient email addresses.
- Open Microsoft Word and compose your email message. You can use placeholder text for the parts of your message that you plan to personalize/populate from the spreadsheet of recipient data.
Step 2: Set up your email message
- In your Microsoft Word document, click on the Mailings tab.
- Click Start Mail Merge and select E-mail Messages from the dropdown menu.
- Click Select Recipients and select Use an Existing List… from the dropdown menu.
- Locate and select the spreadsheet you want to use.
- Click OK.
- You can now begin replacing your placeholder text with the corresponding fields from your spreadsheet. For each field:
- Select the placeholder text.
- Click Insert Merge Field.
- Select the name of the column replacing the placeholder text.
- Once you are done inserting merge fields, click Preview Results. Use the left and right arrows to preview each recipient's personalized email message.
Step 3: Finalize and send
- Once you are happy with how the merged email messages look, click Finish & Merge. Select Send Email Messages… from the dropdown menu.
- The "Merge to E-mail" window opens. Fill out the fields:
-
To: (May already be filled in) Select the name of the column containing the recipient email addresses.
-
Subject line: Type the text you want to appear in the subject line of your email.
-
Mail format: Make sure HTML is selected.
- Note that there is no option to change the "from" field of your email: Word will use whichever Outlook account you have set as your default. To change the "from" field of your email, please skip down to the section titled "Changing the default 'from' email address."
- Click OK.
- You can now open Microsoft Outlook and check your Sent Mail to make sure that the emails successfully sent. You're all set!
Setting up a mail merge on a Mac
Quick guide
Step 1: Create your documents
- If you haven't already done so, open Microsoft Excel and create a spreadsheet of recipient data. Use the first row to label each column, and make sure that there is a column for recipient email addresses.
- Open Microsoft Word and compose your email message. You can use placeholder text for the parts of your message that you plan to personalize/populate from the spreadsheet of recipient data.
Step 2: Set up your email message
- In your Microsoft Word document, click on the Mailings tab.
- Click Start Mail Merge and select Email Messages from the dropdown menu.
- Click Select Recipients and select Use an Existing List… from the dropdown menu.
- Locate and select the spreadsheet you want to use.
- Click OK.
- You can now begin replacing your placeholder text with the corresponding fields from your spreadsheet. For each field:
- Select the placeholder text.
- Click Insert Merge Field.
- Select the name of the column replacing the placeholder text.
- Once you are done inserting merge fields, click Preview Results. Use the left and right arrows to preview each recipient's personalized email message.
Step 3: Finalize and send
- Once you are happy with how the merged email messages look, click Finish & Merge. Select Merge to E-Mail from the dropdown menu.
- If "Merge to E-Mail" is grayed out, please skip down to the section titled "Setting Outlook as the default email client on Mac."
- The "Mail Recipient" window opens. Fill out the fields:
-
To: Click on this field and select the name of the column containing the recipient email addresses.
-
Subject: Type the text you want to appear in the subject line of your email.
-
Send As: Click Text and select HTML Message from the dropdown menu.
- Note that there is no option to change the "from" field of your email: Word will use whichever Outlook account you have set as your default. To change the "from" field of your email, please skip down to the section titled "Changing the default 'from' email address."
- Click Mail Merge To Outbox.
- Click Send.
- You can now open Microsoft Outlook and check your Sent Mail to make sure that the emails successfully sent. You're all set!
Detailed guide (with screenshots)
Step 1: Create your documents
- If you haven't already done so, open Microsoft Excel and create a spreadsheet of recipient data. Use the first row to label each column, and make sure that there is a column for recipient email addresses.
- Open Microsoft Word and compose your email message. You can use placeholder text for the parts of your message that you plan to personalize/populate from the spreadsheet of recipient data.
Step 2: Set up your email message
- In your Microsoft Word document, click on the Mailings tab.
- Click Start Mail Merge and select Email Messages from the dropdown menu.
- Click Select Recipients and select Use an Existing List… from the dropdown menu.
- Locate and select the spreadsheet you want to use.
- Click Yes.
- Click OK.
- You can now begin replacing your placeholder text with the corresponding fields from your spreadsheet. For each field:
- Select the placeholder text.
- Click Insert Merge Field.
- Select the name of the column replacing the placeholder text.
- Once you are done inserting merge fields, click Preview Results. Use the left and right arrows to preview each recipient's personalized email message.
Step 3: Finalize and send
- Once you are happy with how the merged email messages look, click Finish & Merge. Select Merge to E-Mail from the dropdown menu.
- If "Merge to E-Mail" is grayed out, please skip down to the section titled "Setting Outlook as the default email client on Mac."
- The "Mail Recipient" window opens. Fill out the fields:
-
To: Click on this field and select the name of the column containing the recipient email addresses.
-
Subject: Type the text you want to appear in the subject line of your email.
-
Send As: Click Text and select HTML Message from the dropdown menu.
- Note that there is no option to change the "from" field of your email: Word will use whichever Outlook account you have set as your default. To change the "from" field of your email, please skip down to the section titled "Changing the default 'from' email address."
- Click Mail Merge To Outbox.
- Click Send.
- You can now open Microsoft Outlook and check your Sent Mail to make sure that the emails successfully sent. You're all set!
Setting Outlook as the default email client on Mac
If you're using Microsoft Word on a Mac and the option to "Merge to email" is grayed out, follow the steps below to set Outlook as the default email reader:
Quick guide
- Open Finder.
- Navigate to the Applications folder and double-click Mail.
- Mail requires you to set up an account before you can set the default email reader to a non-Mail application:
- Select Microsoft Exchange and click Continue.
- Fill out your name and @usc.edu email address and click Sign In.
- Click Sign In.
- The Shibboleth login page displays. Log in using your USC credentials.
- The Duo screen displays. Follow the on-screen prompt to complete authentication.
- Deselect all apps except Mail.
- Click Done.
- At the top of your screen, click Mail and select Preferences… from the dropdown menu.
- Next to "Default email reader," click "Mail" and select Microsoft Outlook instead from the dropdown menu.
- Click Accounts.
- Deselect the checkbox Enable this account.
- You can now quit Mail and return to Microsoft Word. If Word still has "Merge to email" grayed out, save your document and restart Word.
Detailed guide (with screenshots)
- Open Finder.
- Navigate to the Applications folder and double-click Mail.
- Mail requires you to set up an account before you can set the default email reader to a non-Mail application:
- Select Microsoft Exchange and click Continue.
- Fill out your name and @usc.edu email address and click Sign In.
- Click Sign In.
- The Shibboleth login page displays. Log in using your USC credentials.
- The Duo screen displays. Follow the on-screen prompt to complete authentication.
- Deselect all apps except Mail.
- Click Done.
- At the top of your screen, click Mail and select Preferences… from the dropdown menu.
- Next to "Default email reader," click "Mail" and select Microsoft Outlook instead from the dropdown menu.
- Click Accounts.
- Deselect the checkbox Enable this account.
- You can now quit Mail and return to Microsoft Word. If Word still has "Merge to email" grayed out, save your document and restart Word.
Changing the default "from" address
When you send mail merged email from within Microsoft Word, you cannot customize the "from" field: Word will use whichever Outlook account you have set as your default (typically your @usc.edu email address). Follow the steps below to change your default "from" Outlook account prior to sending your mail merged email from Word (for example, if you want to send the email from a shared org account that you were granted access to).
Note that if you are using Outlook on a Mac, you must be using the version depicted in the screenshots below: if you are using New Outlook, you'll need to temporarily turn it off and revert to the default Outlook, as it isn't possible to change the default "from" address for New Outlook yet.
Change the default "from" address on a Windows PC
Quick guide
- Open the Control Panel by typing Control Panel into the Windows Start menu search bar.
- Click Mail (Microsoft Outlook).
- Click Show Profiles…
- Click Add…
- Type in a profile name (for example, "Departmental Mail Merge") and click OK.
-
Email Account should be selected. Type the org account email address into the Email Address field, followed by the org account name in the Your Name field. Leave the "Password" fields blank.
- Click Next.
- In the Microsoft Sign in window that opens, delete the org account email and type in the email address you use to access the org account (typically your own @usc.edu email address).
- Once the configuration completes, click Finish.
- In the section labeled "When starting Microsoft Outlook, use this profile," click Prompt for a profile to be used.
- Click OK.
- Quit and reopen Outlook. On reopening, Outlook asks you to choose a profile. Select the org account you just set up, and click OK.
- Outlook opens to your org account. If you compose a new Outlook message now, by default the "from" field will display your org account email address. You can now return to your Word file mail merge.
- Once you've successfully sent your mail merged emails, you can quit and reopen Outlook, and then change the default profile back to your original account.
Detailed guide (with screenshots)
- Open the Control Panel by typing Control Panel into the Windows Start menu search bar.
- Click Mail (Microsoft Outlook).
- Click Show Profiles…
- Click Add…
- Type in a profile name (for example, "Departmental Mail Merge") and click OK.
-
Email Account should be selected. Type the org account email address into the Email Address field, followed by the org account name in the Your Name field. Leave the "Password" fields blank.
- Click Next.
- In the Microsoft Sign in window that opens, delete the org account email and type in the email address you use to access the org account (typically your own @usc.edu email address).
- Once the configuration completes, click Finish.
- In the section labeled "When starting Microsoft Outlook, use this profile," click Prompt for a profile to be used.
- Click OK.
- Quit and reopen Outlook. On reopening, Outlook asks you to choose a profile. Select the org account you just set up, and click OK.
- Outlook opens to your org account. If you compose a new Outlook message now, by default the "from" field will display your org account email address. You can now return to your Word file mail merge.
- Once you've successfully sent your mail merged emails, you can quit and reopen Outlook, and then change the default profile back to your original account.