Welcome to Mail Boss

Mail Boss is a free service that allows you to create and manage recurring emails from any mail client. If you use Gmail and a Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave, etc.), the simplest way to use the service is to click the "GMAIL OPTIONS" button at the top of this page and then click the "INSTALL EXTENSION" button and follow the instructions. After the extension is installed, a new "Schedule repeating" option will be added to the Gmail web client as shown here:

NOTE: All scheduled messages are stored on Mail Boss servers so you won't find them in any of your mail client's folders. For information about viewing, editing, and deleting your scheduled messages, see the section titled Manage Scheduled Messages below.

If you're not a Gmail or Chrome/Edge user, you can still use the service. To get started, click the "SIGN UP" button at the top of this page and follow the instructions. After completing the sign-up process, you'll receive a unique Mail Boss email address to which you can send messages that are to be scheduled for later delivery. We recommend adding this email address to your mail client's contact list. Next, to schedule a new recurring email, create the message in your mail client as usual but send it to your Mail Boss contact with a special "scheduling instruction" in the subject line indicating what time, how often, and to whom the email should be sent. The scheduling instruction must come at the end of the subject and start with a hashtag (#) like this:

Subject: Happy New Year! #2020-01-01 9:00am repeat every year to bob@domain.com

This subject line indicates that a message with the subject "Happy New Year!" should be delivered to bob@domain.com on January 1, 2020 at 9am and repeated at the same time every year (dates are in YYYY-MM-DD format). Of course, the scheduling instruction will be removed from the subject line when the message is delivered. And though you can enter the scheduling instruction manually, it's much simpler to navigate to this page and click the "HELPER" link at the top. The Helper application makes creating a scheduling instruction a simple point and click process.

In addition to scheduling new messages, you can also send commands like "#list", "#update", and "#delete" to your Mail Boss email address in order to manage your scheduled messages directly from your email client. See the section titled Manage Scheduled Messages below for more information.

To use Mail Boss, start by clicking the "SIGN UP" button at the top of this screen to receive a unique Mail Boss email address. Next, create a new contact in your mail client using this address and name it something like "Mail Boss". You can then schedule recurring messages by sending them to your Mail Boss email address with a special "scheduling instruction" in the subject line indicating when, how often, and to whom the email should be sent. The scheduling instruction must be at the end of the subject line and start with a hashtag (#) like this:

Subject: Happy New Year! #2020-01-01 9:00am repeat every year to bob@domain.com

This subject line indicates that the message should be delivered to bob@domain.com on January 1, 2020 at 9am and repeated at the same time every year (dates are in YYYY-MM-DD format). After sending the message to Mail Boss, you should receive a confirmation email within 30 seconds. Of course, the scheduling instruction will be removed from the subject line when the message is delivered to the target recipients. Though you can if you wish, creating scheduling instructions manually is not recommended and helper applications are provided to simplify the process (see next section).

NOTE: Each user is limited to a maximum of 50 concurrent scheduled messages and 20 recipients per message. More recipients are possible through the use of a mailing list service like Google Groups.

Schedule Messages with Helper Apps

Rather than creating scheduling instructions manually, it's recommended that you use either the Chrome/Edge browser extension for Gmail or the helper application available at this site in order to simplify the process of creating properly formatted scheduling instructions. Even if you plan to schedule messages using a helper application, browsing the documentation under the "Schedule Messages Manually" section below is recommended as it may help you understand all of the features offered by Mail Boss.

Chrome/Edge Browser Extension for Gmail

To use the Chrome browser extension for Gmail, click the "GMAIL OPTIONS" button at the top of this page and then the "INSTALL EXTENSION" button to install it into your Chrome compatible browser and then navigate to the Gmail site. Compose a new message as you would normally but rather than click "Send", click on the arrow part of the "Send" button. This will present you with a small popup window where you should see "Schedule send" and "Schedule repeating" options (see image below). The "Schedule send" option is provided by Google for one time deliveries of future-dated messages. The "Schedule repeating" option is added by the Mail Boss browser extension and can be used to send recurring messages. To schedule a recurring message, click "Schedule repeating" and complete the resulting dialog box to schedule the message.

Note that when using the Gmail browser extension, you should enter the email recipients as you normally would when sending a message from Gmail (in the "To", "CC", and "BCC" fields) since the extension will automatically copy those addresses to the scheduling instruction and redirect the message to your Mail Boss email address.

Mail Boss Helper Web App

If you're not using Gmail or the Chrome/Edge browser, you can use the helper application available here to schedule your recurring messages. Simply navigate to this site and click the HELPER option at the top of the screen. Specify when and to whom your message should be delivered in the popup dialog box, click the "Copy to clipboard" button, and then paste the contents of your clipboard to the end of your email's subject line before sending the message to your Mail Boss email address. You'll receive a response from Mail Boss within 30 seconds confirming that a new message has been scheduled.

Schedule Messages Manually

Click to show documentation for manual scheduling

Manage Scheduled Messages

You can manage your recurring messages completely within your mail client by sending special commands to your Mail Boss email address.

Retrieve a List of Scheduled Messages

To view all of your currently scheduled messages, send an email to your Mail Boss address with just "#list" in the subject line:

Subject: #list

You should receive a response email within 30 seconds with the full list of your currently scheduled messages. This list includes the next scheduled delivery date, subject line, recurring schedule, creation date, message ID, and all recipients for each email.

NOTE: Sending identical "#list" messages from some mail services (like Gmail) in close succession can cause the service to ignore subsequent messages since it assumes they are duplicates. You can overcome this by simply adding a random sequence of characters following the "#list" command in order to make the subject line unique from previous messages.

Delete Scheduled Messages

To delete an existing email, request a list of all scheduled messages using the "#list" command, find the message ID for the email that you'd like to delete, and send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#delete" command followed by a space and the message ID like this:

Subject: #delete 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1

You should receive an email from Mail Boss within 30 seconds confirming that the message was deleted. Additionally, more than one message can be deleted at a time by specifying multiple message IDs separated by commas like this:

Subject: #delete 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1,ksde57v8hkt7be00b2ltd0mch9liajef3849l901

When deleting multiple messages, you'll receive separate email responses for any messages that were unable to be deleted.

Modify Scheduled Messages

It's possible to modify many aspects of a scheduled message but not the message body or delivery schedule. To change the body or delivery day/frequency, you'll need to delete and recreate the message.

Subject

To modify the subject of an existing email, send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#update" command followed by the message ID, the word "subject", and then the new subject like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 subject This is the new subject

Time

To modify the time of day that an email should be delivered, send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#update" command followed by the message ID, the word "time", and the new time in "11:00am" format (no spaces between time and am/pm) like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 time 11:00am

Though this command allows you to change the time that a scheduled message is delivered, the delivery day cannot be modified without deleting and recreating the message.

Time Zone

To modify the time zone used to calculate the delivery time, send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#update" command followed by the message ID, the word "timezone", and the new time zone in "america/new_york" format (click the "Sign Up" button above to see your properly formatted time zone) like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 timezone america/new_york

If you move to a new time zone, be sure to update the time zone in your user account using the #timezone command. After updating your account, all new messages will use the new time zone but you can use the #update command shown here to update existing messages.

Until Date

To modify the "until" date of an existing email, send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#update" command followed by the message ID, the word "until", and then the new date like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 until 2022-01-01

The previous command tells Mail Boss to stop sending this message after January 1, 2022. You can remove the "until" date entirely using a hyphen ("-") like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 until -

Recipients

To change the recipients of an existing email, send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#update" command followed by the message ID and then the words "to", "cc", and/or "bcc" where each are followed by a comma-delimited list of email addresses (no spaces) like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 to alice@acme.com,bob@domain.com cc charlie@example.com bcc david@domain.com

This will replace the previous list of emails for each section. You can update any combination of the "to", "cc", and "bcc" fields. For instance, the following command updates only the "to" field without changing the "cc" and "bcc" fields:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 to alice@acme.com,bob@domain.com,charlie@example.com

Finally, you can clear the "to", "cc", and/or "bcc" fields by setting their values to a hyphen ("-"). For instance, the following command moves the recipient list created in the command above from the "to" field to the "cc" field:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 to - cc alice@acme.com,bob@domain.com,charlie@example.com

Receipt

To turn on or off the delivery receipt feature for a scheduled message, send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#update" command followed by the message ID and the word "receipt" followed by either "yes" or "no" like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 receipt yes

Skip

To modify the skip settings of a scheduled message, send an email to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#update" command followed by the message ID, the word "skip", and then either a comma-delimited list of dates to skip like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 skip 2021-12-25,2022-01-01

Or the number of deliveries to skip like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 skip 3

The previous command causes the next 3 deliveries to be skipped. Finally, you can clear all skip settings by assigning a hyphen ("-") to the "skip" value like this:

Subject: #update 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 skip -

You should receive an email within 30 seconds confirming that the skip setting was updated.

View Scheduled Messages

To view the contents of a scheduled email, request a list of all scheduled messages using the #list command, find the message ID for the email that you'd like to view, and send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#view" command followed by a space and the message ID like this:

Subject: #view 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1

You should receive an email from Mail Boss within 30 seconds containing the subject and contents of your scheduled message. Another way to view the contents of a scheduled message is to find the original email in your "Sent" folder (the email you sent to create the message). The #list command returns the date and time the scheduled message was created so this information can be used to help locate it.

Pause and Resume Scheduled Messages

To pause the delivery of a scheduled message, request a list of all scheduled messages using the #list command, find the message ID for the email that you'd like to pause, and send a message to your Mail Boss address with a subject line that contains the "#pause" command followed by a space and the message ID like this:

Subject: #pause 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1

It's also possible to pause delivery of a scheduled message until a future date like this:

Subject: #pause 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1 until 2022-01-01

The message above will automatically resume delivery on 2022-01-01. A paused message can be resumed at any time with the following command:

Subject: #resume 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1

After sending these commands, you should receive an email from Mail Boss within 30 seconds confirming that the scheduled message was successfully paused or resumed.

Refresh Old Messages

By default, messages will expire after 2 years regardless of the "until date" setting (or lack thereof) in the scheduling instruction unless they are updated or refreshed. This is intended to prevent orphaned messages from being sent forever. Though messages will automatically expire after 2 years, they can be manually "refreshed" at any time to reset the 2 year time limit. This is done by sending a message to your Mail Boss address with "#refresh" followed by a space and a message ID in the subject line like this:

Subject: #refresh 3n6c86ot591qgdul0l6kuag2t444d6u5jrb4auo1

In addition to the #refresh command, pausing, resuming, or updating a message will also refresh the expiration date.

Update Your Time Zone

Mail Boss needs to know your time zone in order to deliver messages at the right time. This information was collected at sign-up but if you move to a new time zone, you can update it by sending a message to your Mail Boss address with "#timezone" followed by a space and your new time zone in the subject line like this:

Subject: #timezone America/New_York

The easiest way to determine your new time zone is to click on the "SIGN UP" button at the top of this page to see your current time zone according to your browser. If correct, simply click on the time zone to copy it to your clipboard and then paste it into the subject line as shown above. If not correct, the "SIGN UP" dialog box includes a link to a site that can help you find the correct value.

Cancel Your Account

You can cancel your account at any time by sending a message to your Mail Boss email address with the command "#cancel" followed by a space and your Mail Boss ID like this:

Subject: #cancel c275daea-9bc7-435f-9349-21ec35cae9ed

This will delete all record of your Mail Boss account from our database. Please note that you must delete all of your scheduled messages before you can cancel your account.

Schedule Text Messages (SMS & MMS)

You can use Mail Boss to schedule free delivery of text messages by addressing them to each carrier's "Email to SMS Gateway" mail domain. Each mobile carrier provides a gateway for passing emails to their customers via SMS or MMS text messages. For example, to schedule delivery of an SMS text mesage to customers of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, you would create a message in your mail client like normal (including a Mail Boss scheduling instruction in the subject line) but you would use each recipient's phone number and their carrier's mail domain in the "to" part of the scheduling instruction like this:

Subject: #2020-01-01 9:00am to 8885551111@txt.att.net,8885552222@tmomail.net,8885553333@vtext.com
Body: Happy New Year!

As long as each of the phone numbers listed above are addressed to the correct carrier domain, the message will be delivered via SMS text to each recipient. Of course, any emails sent to SMS text recipients should be kept short (ideally under 160 characters). Notice that the subject line in this example contains only the scheduling instruction. This is because some carriers will include the subject in parentheses prior to the body (i.e., "(subject) body" format) which doesn't look like a normal text message. For more information about this approach and a list of SMS Gateway email domains for the most common U.S. carriers, see this article. And if you need to determine the carrier for a particular mobile phone number, check out this free carrier lookup service.

Google Groups Mailing List

When sending scheduled messages to recipient lists that change often or are very large, it may be convenient to create a mailing list from a service like Google Groups. A mailing list allows you to modify recipient lists without changing scheduled messages in Mail Boss. Follow these steps to send messages to a Google Groups mailing list:

1. 1. Go to https://groups.google.com/ and click the "Create group" button to create a new group (i.e., mailing list). If you've already created the group, skip to step 3.
2. 2. Complete the steps to create the group including specifying the email addresses for the initial group members.
3. 3. After the group is created, click on the "Members" link and then the "Add members" button.
4. 4. Add the email address "no-reply@mailboss.org" as a member of your group and select a subscription type of "No email" to prevent emails from being sent to the "no-reply" address.
5. 5. Click the "Add members" button to complete the process of adding the "no-repy@mailboss.org" address to your user group.

Once you've created a new group, create a scheduled message directed to the group's email address (e.g., "dog_walkers@googlegroups.com"). Once the message is scheduled, you can manage the recipients directly from the Google Groups website.

NOTE: Adding the "no-reply@mailboss.org" address to your Google Group is not necessary if you're using the "Send from Gmail" option.

Mail Boss is a free service that you can choose to use at your own risk. Here are the terms of service:

MAIL BOSS IS A FREE SERVICE PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICE OR THE USE OF OR OTHER DEALINGS WITH THE SERVICE.

We hope you enjoy the Mail Boss service. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us via email or the support forum:

Email Address
admin@mailboss.org

Support Forum
https://github.com/mailboss/support/discussions