multi-emailer

This is a tool for sending out multiple "personal" emails at the same time. They'll be sent from your personal Gmail account, and the recipient's name will be attached to the top of each email, so it looks like you hand wrote it (unless you inspect the email very closely).

Here's a screenshot:

Installation

• Download the right multi-emailer binary for your platform from the releases page, and copy it to the server.

• Rename config.sample.yml to config.yml and populate it with values that are appropriate - you'll need a Google Client ID and Secret.

• Enable the GMail API for the project you created.

• Add the groups of people you want to email. The email key should follow this format: "First Last" <email@domain.com>. You can also provide a plain email address - email@domain.com. The opening_line should be the first line of the email to that person - "Dear X". We'll add the comma and the rest of the message. Here is an example:

  groups:
    - id: sf-planning-commission
      name: SF Planning Commission
      recipients:
          - email: Rich Hillis <richhillissf@yahoo.com>
            opening_line: Commissioner Hillis
            cc:
              - Planning Commission Secretary <commissions.secretary@sfgov.org>
          - email: Dennis Richards <dennis.richards@sfgov.org>
            opening_line: Commissioner Richards
          - email: Rodney Fong <planning@rodneyfong.com>
            opening_line: Commissioner Fong
          - email: Christine Johnson <christine.d.johnson@sfgov.org>
            opening_line: Commissioner Johnson
          - email: Joel Koppel <joel.koppel@sfgov.org>
            opening_line: Commissioner Koppel
          - email: Myrna Melgar <myrna.melgar@sfgov.org>
            opening_line: Commissioner Melgar
          - email: Kathrin Moore <kathrin.moore@sfgov.org>
            opening_line: Commissioner Moore

• Start the server: multi-emailer --config=/path/to/config.yml. That's it! Logs are sent to stderr and can be redirected from there.

Deploying to Google Cloud

Run ./bin/gae-deploy. Google Cloud has trouble with the vendor directory.

Deploying to Other Platforms

You can download and install the binary directly:

curl --silent --location --output /usr/local/bin/multi-emailer https://github.com/kevinburke/multi-emailer/releases/download/1.7/multi-emailer-linux-amd64
chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/multi-emailer

Then run /usr/local/bin/multi-emailer in a directory with the config file and the server should start as you expect.

You'll probably need to tweak the project to deploy to Heroku or elsewhere. I'd like to help make that feasible. Please contact me directly - kev@inburke.com - for assistance.

Usage

When users visit the site they'll be redirected to a Google approval page. This page will ask them for permission to send emails on their behalf. Then they'll be redirected and can type away!