This help article is for an old version of Direct Mail.
If you are sending using your own mail server and it is taking a long time to complete, here are some things to consider:
- Instead of using your own server, try using our e3 Delivery Service, for faster, no-hassle message delivery.
- Check that your Internet connection is running at full speed. When sending, upload bandwidth is more important than download bandwidth. You can use a site like Speedtest to check your upload bandwidth.
- Check with your mail server administrator that they are not implementing throttling or "tarpitting". This is a technique where the mail server intentionally slows down the more mail you send to it as a way to prevent spam or keep your account within quota. Note that some mail servers will allow you to exceed your quota for a short time, but will throttle your connection if you continue to send over an extended period of time.
- Try and reduce the size of your email. The larger your email, the longer it will take to send. Removing large attachments or hosting them online is a good way to shrink the size of your message. Note that Direct Mail automatically hosts images in your email. You can check the size of your email by clicking the Send button (without actually sending your campaign). The size of your message will appear in the top-half of the send window.
- Double-check that you have not enabled Direct Mail's connection throttling settings in the Settings (Preferences) window.
- If your Direct Mail project is saved on a network drive, consider moving it to your Mac's local hard drive instead. Direct Mail projects saved on a network drive are slower due to the extra network overhead, and can put you a risk for data loss due to network problems. If you need to access your Direct Mail project from more than one Mac, move it to the Cloud. Projects stored in the cloud are fast, safe, and even available offline.