How the Gmail Email Limit Impacts Your Employee Emails

Alex Cleary

Employee Email

If you’ve ever tried to send bulk emails from Gmail, you have surely encountered the Gmail email limit. We’ll show you how you can avoid Gmail email limits so you can send as many employee emails as you need.

To help prevent spam and keep accounts safe, Gmail limits the number of emails you can send or receive per day, and the number of people you can add as recipients. 

While these limits are there to prevent people from abusing Gmail for spam emails and other troublesome purposes, they can also hinder people from conducting legitimate business processes. 

Thankfully, there are ways to manage Gmail’s sending limits if you know what to do, or what to use.

An easy way to manage the Gmail send limit is to use an internal communications tool like ContactMonkey. Send mass emails like employee newsletters without encountering Gmail email limits with our internal communications tool.

Turn emails into engaging conversations

How Many Emails Can You Send in Gmail at a Time?

Gmail email limits affect your email sending in a variety of ways. The first Gmail email limit that you’ll encounter is the daily sending limit. The current Gmail email sending limit is 2000 emails per 24 hours when sending from their web interface. 

It’s important to note that this means 2000 in any combination (i.e. 1 email to 2000 people or 4 emails to 500 each, etc.). For those wondering how many recipients does Gmail allow in Bcc, these limits affect the total number of emails allowed.

If you go over the sending limit, you might receive a notification like this:

Gmail email limit warning box

When you get this error, you won’t be able to send mails for anywhere from one hour on up to a full day. That could be a lifetime if you’re using your email client for other important company newsletters or updates!

You may also get locked out of Gmail for other sending-related reasons, too.

Gmail classifies incoming mail in the following ways:

  1. Spam vs. non-spam: Spam messages are placed in the spam folder, while non-spam messages are placed in the inbox.
  2. Mail categories: Most users use Gmail’s default inbox which further classifies non-spam mail into categories – Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums.

Because Gmail email limits are imposed to fight spam, having someone mark your bulk message as spam can count against you, even if you’re still technically under the sending limit in a 24-hour period. 

Gmail also has a restriction on the total number of recipients you can email per day so you cannot use CC or BCC to bypass the daily email sending limit.

The Gmail email limit puts a hard cap on how many emails can be sent. That ~2000 email limit isn’t very big to begin with; BBVA Compass uses Gmail for their 10,000+ employees. These limits can seriously affect your business if not properly managed.

How to Get Around the Gmail Email Sending Limit

How do you get around the Gmail email limit issue? Google recommends their equivalent of a distribution list: Google Groups for mass emails.

Just like a distribution list in Outlook, Google Groups allows you to add as many recipients* as you want to a group and assign them a group email. This group email address will count as one recipient, but everyone who is listed in that google group address will receive your email!

*well, technically the limit is 6.2 million recipients per group…

Google groups are a great way to use Gmail for mass emails. They are easy to manage and edit, and can help you avoid encountering Gmail sending errors. 

If you’re using Gmail for internal communications, you will want to be sure that your employees are actually engaging with your emails and updates. This can be a challenge with so many recipients; can you imagine if every person in your Google Group sent you an email to confirm they read and understood your message? Yikes! 

Thankfully, dedicated internal communications software like ContactMonkey gives you the power to receive employee feedback, track your emails, and pinpoint your most effective content.

Why ContactMonkey is Better for Sending Mass Emails

With ContactMonkey’s Email at Scale feature, you can send as many emails from your Gmail inbox as you want without ever running into Gmail email limits. Not only are you no longer bound by Gmail’s 2000-emails-per-24-hour-period limit, but your mass internal emails are sent up to 16 times faster than sending with Gmail alone.

Combine Email at Scale with ContactMonkey’s List Management feature for truly limitless email sending. With List Management, you can create your own distribution lists to use in Gmail, without needing IT approval or having to use Google Groups.

Image of ContactMonkey's List Management feature

Distribution lists created with ContactMonkey can sync with your Human Resources Information System (HRIS) like Workday and ADP, as well as Azure Active Directory. This means your lists will automatically update as employees join and leave your organization, saving you hours of time manually updating your lists.

Whip up emails your employees want to open

Send Mass Emails Without Restriction

Google imposes strict email sending limits and it can be difficult for users to send bulk messages without getting blocked. That doesn’t even touch on the problem of wasting hours by manually importing, crafting, and sending group messages.

ContactMonkey solves the challenges with bulk email sending inside Gmail for internal communications. You can create and manage campaigns faster, and get access to Gmail email tracking statistics that can help you hone your email content. 

Want to smash those Gmail email limits and start sending your internal communications updates from your Gmail inbox? Book a free demo with one of our experts to see our internal communications solution first-hand. 

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