Write a new email or text from the Inbox

Use New message when you want to write to a member yourself, without waiting for them to write first. A new message is one or the other, an email or a text, never both. To send both, send two.

For a newsletter or anything for a whole group, use Write and send a message instead. A new message here is for a handful of people: 25 at most.

Before you start

• To send an email, you need to be on an inbox whose domain is verified, so it can send from the club's address. If none of your inboxes can, the window says None of your inboxes can send email yet. See Set up an inbox and who can read it.
• To send a text, you need permission to send text messages, and texts must be switched on for the club. Otherwise Text is greyed out, or the window says text messages are switched off.

Write one

1. Press New message on the Inbox page. You can also press Send email or Send text on a member's Messages tab, which fills in the member for you. See A member's messages.
2. Choose Email or Text at the top.
3. For an email, check From. If you are on more than one inbox with a verified domain, choose which. The message goes with your name on it.
4. In To, type a name or member number, or an email address (a mobile number for a text), and press the person. Add as many as you need. Each shows as a chip with the address or number it will use, and a cross to take them off.
5. For an email, type the Subject and the Message. Your email signature goes below your words, if you have one. Attachments are not available yet.
6. For a text, type the Message. The club's name goes at the start for you and counts in the length. Under the box are how many SMS it is and what it costs.
7. Press Send email or Send text. With more than one person, the button says how many, for example Send email to 3.

What happens next

• Each person gets their own copy, so nobody sees who else it went to. People who share an address or number get one copy.
• Each copy is a conversation of its own, linked to the member it is for, and listed in Sent. It joins the Inbox folder only when someone writes back.
• It is also recorded against each member, on their Messages tab.

If it cannot go to someone

A person who cannot be sent this message is marked in red, with the reason, and the rest can still go. After sending, the window lists anyone it did not go to and why.

A text follows the rules for texts to members:

• It goes only to an adult's own mobile, and not to a number that has replied STOP or has said no to texts.
• If the text looks like selling something, a box asks you to tick that it only states facts and sells nothing. Tick it only if that is true.

If something goes wrong

• Sent, but some of it could not be recorded here, so it may not show in Sent. Do not send it again. The message left. Check Sent before sending anything again.
• That had already been sent. Look in Sent. Pressing the button twice did not send it twice.