Get started with Mail Merge for Gmail and Sheets

To send your first mail merge, install the add-on, list your recipients in a Google Sheet with an Email column, write the message as a Gmail draft with placeholders like {{First Name}}, send yourself a test, then click Start Campaign. The add-on sends one separate email per row from your own Gmail account and writes EMAIL_SENT next to each recipient.

Step 1. Install the add-on

1. Open the Mail Merge for Gmail™ Sheets™ listing in the Google Workspace Marketplace and click Install.
2. Pick the Google account you want to send email from. The add-on always sends from the account it runs in.
3. Approve all the requested permissions. What each permission is for.

Using a work or school account and seeing “You do not have access to this Addon”? Your administrator needs to allow it first. See Admin setup.

Step 2. Set up the sheet

1. Open a new Google Sheet, or an empty tab in an existing one.
2. Go to Extensions → Mail Merge for Sheets™ Gmail™ → 🚀 Launch.
3. If the sheet is not set up yet, you see Mail Merge Setup Required. Click Yes. The add-on creates four columns in row 1, Email, First Name, Last Name and Mail Merge, and adds a sample row with your own address and name. The sidebar then opens.
4. Replace the sample row with your recipients, one per row. To add people from your address book, click Import Google Contacts in the sidebar (or 👥 Import Google Contacts in the menu). It adds the names and email addresses of your Google Contacts as new rows.

Your sheet will look like this:

Email	First Name	Last Name	Mail Merge	Company
[email protected]	Ana	Silva		Northwind
[email protected]	Ben	Okafor		Contoso

A few rules:

• The headers Email and Mail Merge are required and must be spelled exactly like that, with the same capital letters. Without them you get “Required columns not found: Email or Mail Merge”.
• Leave the Mail Merge column empty. The add-on fills it with a status for each row.
• Add any other columns you need, such as Company, City or a link, to the right of the first four. Every header can be used as a placeholder.
• Rows without an email address are ignored.

Already have a list? The add-on looks for its four headers in the first four columns of row 1. If they are not there, Launch offers the setup again and inserts a new header row above your data. To avoid that, type Email, First Name, Last Name and Mail Merge in cells A1 to D1 yourself, in that order, and keep your other columns to the right.

Step 3. Write the email as a Gmail draft

1. In Gmail, click Compose.
2. Leave the To field empty. The add-on takes each address from the Email column.
3. Write the subject and the message. Wherever you want a value from the sheet, type the column header between double curly braces, for example {{First Name}}.
4. Close the composer. Gmail saves the message as a draft. Do not send it.

An example draft:

Subject: A quick idea for {{Company}}

Hi {{First Name}},

I saw that {{Company}} is hiring for new roles this month.
Would a 15-minute call next week be useful?

Best,
Ana

For Ana’s row, the subject becomes “A quick idea for Northwind” and the greeting becomes “Hi Ana,”.

• The placeholder must match the header exactly, including capital letters and spaces.
• Bold text, colors, links and images in the draft are kept.
• Files attached to the draft are sent to every recipient.

More rules and tips: Personalize with placeholders.

Step 4. Start a new campaign and pick the draft

In the sidebar, click Start New Campaign (or use 📧 Start New Campaign in the menu). A dialog opens with three tabs:

1. Select Draft lists your 30 most recent Gmail drafts. If your new draft is missing, click Refresh. Select the draft.
2. Campaign Options:
   • Track emails opened, clicked… is on by default and works on every plan. See Track opens and clicks.
   • Reply-to Email (optional): where replies should go, if not to your own address.
   • Sender Name (optional): the name recipients see, up to 50 characters, without <, > or email addresses.
   • Personalized Attachments: a different file for each recipient (paid plans).
3. Schedule:
   • When to send: Send immediately, or Schedule for later on paid plans. See Schedule a campaign.
   • Delay between emails: 0 to 60 seconds, 1 second by default.
   • Maximum emails per launch: 100 by default. Slide it to the far left for no limit.

Step 5. Send a test email

On the Schedule tab, click Send Test Email. The add-on sends one email to your own address, personalized with the first data row (row 2). Test emails don’t use your free emails, and they don’t include tracking or the free-plan footer.

Open the test in Gmail and check the subject, the names, the links and any attachments. If you see {{Something}} in the text, the header doesn’t match. Fix it before you send.

Step 6. Start the campaign

Click 🚀 Start Campaign. A progress bar shows how many emails have been sent. For each row:

• the add-on sends one email from your Gmail account,
• writes EMAIL_SENT in the Mail Merge column,
• adds a note to that cell with the time, for example “Sent: Nov 05, 2026 10:15:02”.

If a row fails, its cell shows Error: and the reason, and the campaign moves on to the next row. On the free plan, each sent email uses one of your free emails. If they run out, the remaining rows get CLICK_GO_PREMIUM__NO_CREDITS_LEFT and the campaign stops.

Google limits how many recipients you can email per day: about 100 on @gmail.com and 1,500 on Google Workspace. See Gmail sending limits.

How do I run a campaign again safely?

You can start the same campaign again at any time. The add-on skips every row whose Mail Merge cell already says EMAIL_SENT, EMAIL_OPENED, EMAIL_CLICKED or SKIP, so nobody gets the same email twice. Only rows with an empty cell, an error or a limit status are sent. This is how you:

• send to new rows you added at the bottom,
• retry rows that failed after you fixed them,
• send the rest of a list after you hit the daily limit.

To leave a row out, type SKIP in capital letters in its Mail Merge cell.

To send a new email to the same list, click 🧹 Clean Current Campaign in the menu or sidebar. It removes all Mail Merge statuses and notes from the current tab, and it cannot be undone. If you want to keep the results of the first campaign, duplicate the tab first and clean the copy.

Related

• Personalize with placeholders
• Track opens and clicks
• Gmail sending limits
• Fix common errors
• Mail Merge for Gmail and Sheets product page

Gmail™, Google Sheets™ and Google Workspace™ are trademarks of Google LLC.