USER GUIDE v2.1
- Introduction
- Setting up your first MailShot group
- The Group Page
- The Contacts Page
- Adding Contacts
- Sending email with MailShot
- The User Settings page (and where your groups are stored)
Introduction
Welcome to MailShot, the unique way to build group emailing into the address book of your iPhone or iPad. MailShot was originally conceived to make it easy to communicate with small groups of friends or colleagues, sports team or band members, but we now have many thousands of customers using it for larger mailing lists.
MailShot creates a special “contact” in your address book. You can address email to that contact from tens of thousands of different apps on your device, to send it to the entire group. (TIP: Be sure to always address your email using the blue + button in Mail, to fetch the complete, latest version of your group contact.)
This guide is split into sections, accessible from the index above. We’ll do a quick walk-through of setting up your first group, and then we’ll look at each section of the app in turn.
For any problems, including answers to the most often asked user questions, please see our MailShot Support Page. If you can’t find the answer there, or are still having problems, please email us on support@solubleapps.com and we’ll be happy to help.
On to 2. Setting up your first MailShot group
I got the app and created two groups. Impressive,
But how do i attach them to an email?
Secondly, would you have a pdf maual to dload to my iPad?
Thanks
Hi , I assume you are asking how you send email to those groups?
MailShot creates a contact in your address book for each group when you tap the “UPDATE” button. In Mail, or similar app, you use that contact in the to:, cc:, or bcc: lines of your email by tapping the blue ‘+’ icon and selecting it from “all contacts”, and your mail will be sent to the group.
If you are asking how you send those groups to other iOS users by email- you would do this by selecting the contact MailShot created for you in the Contacts app, tapping ‘share’ in that app, and then addressing the email it creates to the person, or persons, you wished to share your group with. MailShot contacts can be shared between your own devices using iTunes contact sync.
We have a comprehensive online User Guide which can help you with questions like this. (We used to also produce a PDF version, but found very few people used it and it was difficult to keep fully up to date. We have only had one or two requests since we stopped providing it over a year ago.)
Thanks. Got it. Now on iPad. Great service. Now let me see how to put it to work!
Do you have to build the same groups on our iPad and iPhone or how can we share the lists?
Hi Diana
You share the contacts MailShot creates between your iOS devices using any contact sync method, such as iTunes or iCloud Contact Sync. (And often with Exchange too, though that depends on your contact synch service)
Only one device can manage your groups, however, so if you install MailShot on a second you will not see the groups managed by the first (although either device can still send email to all the groups you create.)
Whatversion do I Have? The free one or the full version? How can I find out?
Hi Ellen.
To be certain which version you are running, look at the title page of MailShot-
The icons for “MailShot” and “MailShot Pro” also differ, the envelope is cream for MailShot and gold for MailShot Pro.
Note that “MailShot” and “MailShot Pro” are considered as separate apps on the App Store. Do not purchase both, or you will be charged for each one.
MailShot’s title page includes a button to “restore purchases” (and also uses iCloud to upgrade your other devices automatically from an in-app purchase)
Cheers
Peter
Soluble Apps
Hi
I don’t want people in my distribution list to see the other people in The group. Is this possible?
Sure, you can do this simply by placing the contact in the Bcc line instead of the To line of the email. This is the standard method for email.
See this article on our support page for details: http://solubleapps.com/mailshot-support/#HIDE
Peter
Hi,
I just bought Mailshot Pro and have added several email groups. When I go to mail and tap on he blue + button it gives me the groups but whenI select a group it just shows me a list of the contacts in that group and no way to actually send the group an email.
Gary
Hi Gary
You are probably trying to load an address book group from the Groups page.
MailShot creates a special type of contact, so you will find it in the list of contacts, not in the list of groups.
TIP: If you can’t find it, tap “Groups”, then select “All Contacts” or “Show All Contacts” (iOS6) to make sure that you can see contacts from all of the address books and groups on your device.
This is covered in an article on our support page- http://solubleapps.com/mailshot-support/#LIST
Peter
Thanks, you got it right…..
When I send an email to the group fromy iPhone, it works perfectly.
When I use the Mail app on my MAC, I select the group the same way. It show the address in the TO field. I can even click the address to see all the addresses. But when I send it only sends the message to the first person from the group list.
Again – iPhone fine
MAC- only first address in group
Hi Frank
Although MailShot is intended primarily to bring group email to many thousands of iOS apps which don’t have it, you can also use the special contacts it creates from mail on the mac. Please see this link on our support page for instructions.
If it works in iOS, but you find it only goes to the first person in your group in mail, then you didn’t set the black checkmark correctly in mail.
Please drop me a line if you need further assistance, using the “support” button on the title page of MailShot.
Peter
Hi
Do you have an up to date PDF manual yet? Great app. Thanks.
Thanks Malon
We used to do a downloadable PDF, but it is time-consuming to convert, and difficult to keep up-to-date.
We have had 3 or fewer requests for one since we withdrew it nearly a year ago, so I’m afraid that we don’t have plans to produce one currently. (You could use a service such as http://www.web2pdfconvert.com to capture the manual pages if you really need to use them offline.)
We will be happy to do it the long way if there is enough demand, so if you are reading this and would find a PDF (or iBooks?) version useful, please do drop us a line.
My MailShot group did not transfer to my iPhone from my iPad after syncing on iCloud
MailShot creates special group contacts containing your groups. These are automatically shared to your other devices using iCloud (or another means of contact sharing.) These shared contacts can be used to send email to MailShot groups from any of your iOS devices.
If the contacts which MailShot creates are not sharing between your devices, please let us know how each device is set up for contact synching, and let us know if you see the groups at all on the second device. We will do our best to help…
Only one device can be used to manage each MailShot group (so groups do not become visible in the MailShot app on other devices.)
You may find it simplest to only run MailShot on one of your devices (perhaps an iPhone, as you will normally have this with you?). If you want to permanently move a MailShot group to a different device, instructions are provided here.
TIP You can also edit the group contact directly on the address line before you send an email, even on the other devices. (This is typically done by users who want to omit the original sender from a group they are forwarding email to.) Here’s a link to the article on how to do this on our Support Page
Congratulations I wanted to create groups on my iPhone for years. This is simple an easy to use app and is the way to go. I upgraded right away so as I could make larger groups. What’s the difference between upgrade and pro?
Thanks for your kind comments, Peter
There’s no difference in abilities, it is simply an alternative way to purchase.
Do stick with whichever method you choose, as they are charged separately by the App Store.
Peter
Soluble
How can I edit an email in a group? When I try to edit, it does not let me type to change the mistake.
Hope
Hi Hope.
This is generally quite straightforward, though the details depend on how the contact was added. It is covered here in our User Guide http://solubleapps.com/mailshot-guide-contacts/.
Please get in touch with us directly from the “Support” button in Mailshot so we can help you, as your email address was entered incorrectly on this site.
This app is great for group emails, but I seem to be having problems sending out calendar invites using contacts created on Mailshot..I get an error message response stating that the format is incorrect…I am using this on my company iPad…any ideas on how to work around this?
Thanks for your kind comments.
MailShot works for tens of thousands of different apps that use standard Mail-compatible code, including the Mail app itself.
Unfortunately Calendar does not use this standard method, and rejects the long address strings that MailShot uses (probably because it wants to be able to track all contacts it invites). I don’t believe any group email solution available on the App Store can be used from Calendar.
I am a new mailshot user and as a coach for several teams it is a great time saver utilizing my IOS devices. Is there a way to transfer the groups I created amongst IOS devices so that I don’t have to re-create the group on every device?
Hi Troy
You don’t need to create the group on several devices.
MailShot shares the contacts it creates between all your iOS devices, so you can send email to your groups using any of your devices.
You can, however, only edit the group on one device at once (an iPhone is often the best choice for this as it will always be with you) If you want to move a group across to manage from another device, you can find instructions for this here:
Peter
Soluble
Is it possible to export contact list to a spreadsheet?
Hi Jackie
:
I’m afraid not, although you can export the group as a list (following these instructions
) which you could turn into a .csv file, suitable for import into your spreadsheet.
I hope this helps
Peter
Soluble
How do I print out both the list of groups and the members in each group?
Hi Bonnie
This article on our support page tells you how to print a list of contacts in a group.
Peter
Soluble
I can’t get it to work. Keeps saying my privacy settings need changing. I’ve changed them to allow access but still getting same message and won’t work. I don’t have parental controls. Device is io6.
Hi Pat
This article on our support page explains how to set the Privacy settings with step-by-step diagrams.
Peter
Soluble
How do I turn off that annoying sound this program makes when I use the program?
Hi Joan
See this article on our support page for instructions.
Peter
Soluble