PHP Mailing List

[eric_darling]

I'm trying to help a non-profit client of ours set up a way to e-mail their 1,100 members at once. We have approval from our co-lo to allow that kind of volume once per day from their account. However, I can't seem to find a free tool that answers all of our needs.

Does anyone have any experience with a free or even inexpensive PHP/MySQL combo mailing list management tool that allows for good control of user list and flood control of messages? We're talking not many messages, as I state above, but it's a lot of destination addresses all at once - we can't have half of them bouncing back to my client each time they try to send something.

We've considered external solutions like Constant Contact, but they're just too much money over time. They'll spend a couple of hundred bucks up-front, but not $30/month for the rest of their existence.

[Corey]

There's some inexpensive stuff here including 1-2 that offer a free demo. I wish I had more experience to offer but I'm not sure which titles are best:

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Mailing_List_Managers/

[sside]

I have done an application (ams5) to send e-mails. It supports also mailing lists. Title Mail Anywhere. I am just testing it before i upload it here. It was suppossed to be for the ams community. Just another application to share with everyone.

Mail Anywhere will send e-mails using a PHP script. It is freeware. It is ideal when you have many accounts. The application will recognize the contacts you have with each account and will (if choosen) send to each of them a message. For example:
If you choose a To e-mail address the application knows the From address (your account) and will insert it for you. But, if you choose the From address (an account of yours) the application will load all the contacts you have with this account. It is up to user to send an e-mail to a single contact or all of them.
It is so that when you send e-mail to all contacts in your mailing list, they will not see each other addresses. If you don't have a PHP script the application will generate the script for you and upload it for you at your given location. A PHP supported hosting is required.

[eric_darling]

Sounds interesting, sside!

Can you import a list of addresses from, say, a CSV file?

Can you regulate how many email messages get sent at one time? I have a problem with a couple of free scripts that don't offer a way to limit the amount, and our server gets overloaded after 500 or so. I guess we could always break up the recipients into groups under 500 and then manually wait, but that seems like a difficult step for this client.

This looks very nifty.

[Corey]

Looks awesome sside! :yes

[sside]

Eric

I did it as a ready to go application for the ams community. I didn't get to specific but i thought surely it was going to be something handy to have.

I can tweak the application the way you like. I was thinking to add a timming option. For example: at a given time the application is going to send a message to my mailing list (my contacts). Like in the movies, you setup the application to send a e-mail somewhere at a given time in case you are not back in time :D
The application has a SQLite database for the contacts. You can export also the csv file into SQLite database. I have done similar applications to update SQL online databases using PHP scripts with thousends records in one time. It took ±15 min but hey...

[sside]

Looks awesome sside! :yes
Thank you Corey

When i upload it (it will be one of these days) i hope you find it usefull

[eric_darling]

That is too cool for school... Keep us posted - I may need to go with something different on this one, since the need will be here this week. Many thanks for thinking of me, though. It sounds like a very interesting option.

[sside]

When is it that you need it (if i understand you correctly)? I was not planning to change something right now. Just some last tests and i was planning to upload here in this forum for the ams community. I think in your situation a log option is needed in case something fails (internet connection, etc). Right now the application lets you know through dialog box how mailing went with the proper error code. For example:

email1@msn.com Success.
email2@msn.com Success.
email3@msn.com Success.

But if the mailing list is too long the dialog box will expand up and down the screen (never thought about 1100 contacts). But that can be easy changed into a log page for long mailing lists.

[eric_darling]

Well, I need it in the next few days, I'm sure. The client and I have tried a couple of different options to date without success, so the next one kind of needs to work, if you know what I mean. :)

I don't want you to rush something to completion on my account.

You're right about a log file, that's probably necessary when we're talking about that many addresses.

In our case, I'm sure that the burst sending option would be a necessity. Our server just can't handle that many e-mails at once. So, I know this is kind of an advanced feature request, and another reason for you to not try staying up late on my account!

I really appreciate your follow-up on this, sside. But, honestly, I don't feel comfortable asking you to do anything special for me.

[sside]

Eric

Here http://www.indigorose.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10619 you can give it a try. I will make the changes to the application in order to make it to fit your needs. This is a general version let me say, for everybody. Let me know if there is some other thing i can add.