[Plugin: Email Users] Can I have recipient's first name in email message?

It isn’t possible with the current version but that is a good idea. I’ll try and take a look at it sometime this week.

I took a look at this while chasing down the problem with some of the addresses not receiving email (fixed in 4.3.11).

The way the plugin works if more than one user is selected, a list of email addresses is constructed as part of the BCC header. The plugin tries to send out as few emails as possible, it could be as few as one depending on the BCC limit setting.

The only time a keyword substitution for the first name would make sense would be when ONE user is selected as the recipient. In any other case every user would receive the same value for the keyword substitution which means that for all users but one, the first name would likely be wrong.

For now I am going to mark this as resolved as something which isn’t possible under the current architecture of the plugin. I like the idea but it would mean sending one email per recipient which would dramatically increase the chance of the web site being considered a source of spam.

Mike, Thanks for exploring this. I have built several email solutions for companies, and throttling seems to be the solution to the -sending-too-many-emails-so-this-must-be-spam problem.

The concept is really simple: send up to a fixed limit (say 250), then wait x minutes, then send another batch. Repeat until all are sent. Could also stop this after y batches to eliminate abuse.

I run this as part of the PHP code, so it doesn’t matter what the server architecture is. Don’t have that snippet handy right now, but can dig it up next week if you’re interested. (Or check out this forum for the two keys to success with throttling.)

I think adding the capability to address recepients by firstname would enhance the value of your plugin.

In the WordPress scheme I believe what you’re proposing would be possible by leveraging WP_Cron. You wouldn’t want the Dashboard to go into a non-responsive state while sending and pausing between emails so they would have to be scheduled. This is a little beyond the scope of what I have time to do right now but I agree it would be very useful.