Newsletter

Write a newsletter email in Markdown, test it, and send it now or at a scheduled time.

Newsletter emails are written in Markdown on the Newsletter page of Personal or a team. A test goes to your own address first. Then the email goes to every active subscriber, at once or at the time you choose, and its page counts the copies delivered, failed and skipped.

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Write an email

Write an email opens a draft with three fields. Save draft keeps it under Not sent yet on the Newsletter page, where the rest of the team can open it. A draft goes to nobody until someone sends it.

Subject
The subject line subscribers see in their inbox.
Preview text
Optional. Many inboxes show it beside the subject.
Email
The body, in Markdown: headings, bold and italic text, lists, links, quotes and tables. HTML typed into the body is removed before sending.
Preview
A draft's page shows how the Markdown will look to a subscriber. Edit draft opens it again.

Send a test

Send a test sends the draft to the email address on your Magpie account and to nobody else. Its subject starts with [Test], and the email says subscribers have not received it.

The test uses the newsletter's From name and Reply-to address, so it shows the formatting, the links and where a reply will go.

Send now or schedule

Under Delivery, the page names how many subscribers would get the email now. Sending or scheduling asks you to confirm first, with the subject and that number.

  1. Send now

    Sending will start within a minute. The email moves to Sent when every copy has gone.

  2. Schedule

    Choose a date and time in your account's time zone, which is shown under the field. Sending will start within a minute of that time.

  3. The recipient list is fixed

    It is fixed when you send or schedule. Subscribers who join afterwards will not get that email. A subscriber who unsubscribes, or whose address bounces on an earlier email, before their copy goes out will be skipped.

  4. Cancel email

    A scheduled or queued email can be canceled from its page, under More, until the first copy goes out. After that it cannot be edited or recalled.

  5. Before the first send

    Sending needs at least one active subscriber and a newsletter set to Active. Drafts can be written and saved before then.

Each email's page and its delivery counts

Every email has its own page, opened from Not sent yet or Sent. It shows the status, who wrote it, and the email as subscribers received it, which cannot be changed once sent.

Status
Draft, Scheduled, Queued, Sending, Sent, Sent with failures, Failed or Canceled. While an email goes out, its page shows how many copies are done.
Recipients
The active subscribers when the email was sent or scheduled.
Delivered
Copies that went out to subscribers' addresses.
Failed
Copies that bounced, were reported as spam, or could not be sent after several tries.
Skipped
Copies for subscribers who unsubscribed, were removed, or bounced on an earlier email after this one was queued.

What subscribers receive

Each email is sent as HTML with a plain-text version, from Magpie's newsletter sending address. Three settings, which team admins change, set how it appears in an inbox.

From name
The name beside the subject. It is the newsletter's name unless you set another.
Reply-to address
Where a subscriber's reply goes. Set one to receive replies.
Footer note
A note added under every email, above the unsubscribe link.
Unsubscribe link
Every email ends with an unsubscribe link and a line saying it was delivered by Magpie. It also has the one-click unsubscribe header that mail programs use for their own Unsubscribe button.
View in browser
With Web copies on, each email starts with a link to its public web copy.

Web copies, the archive and Social Media

With Web copies on in Settings, each sent email has a public page, and Past emails on the newsletter's signup page lists them, newest first. While signups are open, a web copy has a Subscribe button for someone who arrives from a forwarded or shared link. Turning Web copies off hides these pages; it cannot recall email already delivered.

Share to Social Media, on a sent email's page, makes a Social Media post that starts with New issue and the email's subject, with the web copy's address, and opens it to finish and publish.

Who can send, and the monthly allowance

Members who can edit in the team write, test, schedule and send email; view-only members can read the emails. Settings and the subscriber list are for team admins.

Plans set how many emails can be sent each month, counted as one for each subscriber an email goes to; skipped and canceled copies do not count. The allowance is checked for the whole list when an email is sent or scheduled, so an email that would go over it is not queued and a list is never half sent. Pro and the Team plan raise the allowance.

Write your first newsletter email.

Create a Magpie account, start a newsletter from Newsletter with its name, and write the first email.

Create account