Send a Mail Merge from a Shared Mailbox

When sending mail merges, sometimes you may have the need to send one from your departmental or shared mailbox rather than your own address. Since mail merges always send from the default account in the profile, you'll need to create a separate profile in the desktop version of Outlook in order to send a merges from an account other than your own, regardless of whether you have that account already accessible in your current profile.

You'll only need to do this once however, as once created, you'll be able to simply select the other profile when launching Outlook for future merges you wish to send in this way.

Windows

1. Ensure that both Outlook and Skype for Business applications are not running on your computer. If they are, quit them, and ensure they're not still running in your system tray by your clock.
2. Choose Start > Control Panel > Mail
3. Click Show Profiles, then Add.
4. Give the profile a name (the name of the mailbox is recommended here) and click OK.
5. Follow the prompts and enter the account information, including the password if prompted.
6. Click Next, then Finish.
7. Back in the Mail window, select the you've just created, and select Prompt for a profile to be used.

Sending the merge using the new profile

1. Open Outlook and you should be prompted to choose a profile. Select the profile you just created for the shared mailbox and continue to launch Outlook.
2. Once Outlook is open, select the Send/Receive tab and click the Work Offline button. This will toggle the button on, which will disconnect your Outlook application from the internet until you toggle the button back off at the end of this process.
3. Next, open the document you want to send via mail merge in Word, and select the Mailings tab.
4. Click Select Recipients and choose “Use Existing List”, select your mailing list, and continue through the mail merge wizard prompts as normal.
5. When finished, select Finish and Merge.
6. Select Send E-Mail Messages,and in the “Merge to E-mail” dialog box that comes up, verify that the “To:” field and the “Subject line” field show the correct fields. Then verify that the mail format is HTML. Click OK.
7. The emails should then propagate in your outbox in Outlook, since we've told Outlook to Work Offline back in Step 2. This gives you the chance to open the messages in the Outbox and manually edit any information. For example, in the “CC” field you could add additional recipients.
8. When you are sure the emails are correct, switch Outlook back into Online mode (see step 2) and the messages will be sent.

FINAL STEP - Once the merge is successfully sent, make sure to exit and relaunch Outlook, and this time select your original profile for your own email address once again. Otherwise, all applications will attempt to send any future emails through the shared mailbox rather than your account.

Any time you need to send another merge from the shared mailbox in the future, you can simply relaunch Outlook and select that profile to do so. If you very rarely send merges in this way, you can also choose to go back to Mail in the Control Panel and set your personal profile as the default, and remove the checkbox to prompt for a profile upon launch. This way, Outlook will go back to loading your individual profile automatically as before, yet the shared-mailbox profile will remain available for you to use should you need it in the future.

macOS

For assistance sending a mail merge from a Mac computer using a shared mailbox, contact the Service Desk at 508-565-1111 or service-desk@stonehill.edu, as steps can vary by version of Outlook and macOS.