Preview every email in your mail merge before you send.
Add your list and message, fix what the checks find, and see what each person will receive. Your list stays in this browser: Cabal receives it only if you choose Save.
What the previewer checks
- Tags with missing or extra braces, such as {first_name} or {{{first_name}}}
- Tags with no column to fill them, and rows where a tag’s value is blank
- Rows with no email address, more than one address, or an address in the wrong format
- The same address on more than one row
- Missing first names, and names that look like they came from the wrong column
- Placeholder text left in brackets, such as [Your name]
Checks cover format and duplicates only. They can’t tell whether an address reaches anyone.
How to preview a mail merge
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Add your list
Upload a CSV, paste rows from a spreadsheet, or start with the sample list.
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Write your message
Add a subject and message, with tags such as {{first_name}} where each person’s details go.
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Match your columns
Choose the column for each address, name and tag, and what to show when a value is blank.
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Fix and preview
Fix what the checks find, then step through each person’s message, or only the ones with problems.
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Export or save
Download every message as a CSV, or save the list and a draft in Cabal to send each person their own email.
Who gets what when you send
Where you put people, and whether Mail Merge is on, decides who receives which email. Here's what each option does in Cabal.
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Mail merge
Each person in To gets their own email, in their own thread.
- People in To don't see each other's addresses, so a reply-all can't reach the whole list.
- {{first_name}} and {{full_name}} are filled in for each person, in the subject and the body.
- Mail Merge is on by default in the composer.
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One shared email
Turn Mail Merge off and everyone in To gets one email together, in a single thread.
- Everyone sees every address in To, and reply-all reaches the whole group.
- Anyone you CC gets that one email.
- Tags aren't filled in, and if the body has one, the email isn't sent to anyone.
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CC
Copying someone on a 50-person mail merge sends them 50 emails.
- In a mail merge, everyone in CC gets one email for every recipient in To.
- To keep a colleague in the loop with a single email, add them to To instead.
- With Mail Merge off, CC works as usual: each person you copy gets the one shared email.
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BCC
Cabal's composer doesn't have a BCC field.
- You don't need one to hide a list: in a mail merge, people in To already can't see each other's addresses.
- Each person gets an individual email instead of one email with the list hidden in BCC.