What are the bulk, or mass email, sending limits?

Overview

Sending out large quantities of email is restricted to help prevent compromised accounts from spreading phishing and other malicious emails to other university accounts. This article summarizes the limits different accounts can send within a one hour and within 24 hours. Once a limit is reached the sender will not be able to send emails until the next day. See related articles for approved methods to send bulk or mass emails.

 

Sending Limit Error Message

When an account hits the sending limit they will see a bounce message that includes:

550 5.1.8 Access denied, bad outbound sender

For additional information on the error: https://support.uidaho.edu/TDClient/40/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=2233

 

Sending Limits

Policy/Group Name External Recipients Per Hour Internal Recipients Per Hour Total Recipients Per 24 Hours Auto-Forward
Certain Accounts Deemed High Risk 50 50 100 Yes
Bulk or Mass Emails 10,000 10,000 10,000 No
Employees 500 500 1,000 No
Students 250 250 500 Yes

Warning: In addition to these limits, each account has a limit of 500 recipients per message.

 

Functional Accounts and SendAs

It is recommended to use a functional account for an exception to the sending limit but there is a potential issue with SendAs permissions.

  • Warning: When using SendAs permissions and just changing the From: address, the signed in user restriction will be used.

To work around this limitation here are some options:

  • Use Outlook for the Web to access the functional mailbox at https://outlook.office.com/mail/functional-username@uidaho.edu.
    • This will properly use the functional account sending restrictions for outbound messages.
    • This is the recommended method for sending from a functional or shared mailbox.
  • Create a dedicated Outlook profile for the functional account which is separate from your personal account.

 

 

 

 

Details

Article ID: 2295
Created
Thu 8/25/22 4:35 PM
Modified
Wed 3/13/24 4:28 PM

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