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Number of email recipients suddenly restricted from 500 to 32

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by sfhowes

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Has Thunderbird recently imposed a strict limit on the number of recipients I can have in the same email? The new limit seems to be just 32 recipients. It used to be 500. Is this maybe a new "feature" of the latest Thunderbird build?

I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird for years, and I have used my Earthlink email address even longer. I used to be able to easily email around 300 of my ski club members. Up until about 2 or 3 weeks ago (approximately).

I now keep getting the same error message, saying that there are "Too many recipients". See the attached image. It asks me to to check one particular email address. It' just happens that it's my own address, becauswe I am including myself among the recipients. So I deleted that address. Then I got the same message for a different email address. I soon realized that the address in error is always in position #33 on my email list recipients.

I deleted all the other addresses except the first 32, and sure enough, it worked. The email was sent successfully. But any more than 32 results in the same error message.

Is this restriction to just 32 recipients caused by Thunderbird? Why?

Earthlink assures me that they have not changed anything in their policy regarding the maximum number of email recipients. So, it must be soemthing to do with Thunderbird.

If I cannot communicate with all my club members, then Thunderbird suddenly becomes useless to me and I will have to look for an alternative.

Has Thunderbird recently imposed a strict limit on the number of recipients I can have in the same email? The new limit seems to be just 32 recipients. It used to be 500. Is this maybe a new "feature" of the latest Thunderbird build? I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird for years, and I have used my Earthlink email address even longer. I used to be able to easily email around 300 of my ski club members. Up until about 2 or 3 weeks ago (approximately). I now keep getting the same error message, saying that there are "Too many recipients". See the attached image. It asks me to to check one particular email address. It' just happens that it's my own address, becauswe I am including myself among the recipients. So I deleted that address. Then I got the same message for a different email address. I soon realized that the address in error is always in position #33 on my email list recipients. I deleted all the other addresses except the first 32, and sure enough, it worked. The email was sent successfully. But any more than 32 results in the same error message. Is this restriction to just 32 recipients caused by Thunderbird? Why? Earthlink assures me that they have not changed anything in their policy regarding the maximum number of email recipients. So, it must be soemthing to do with Thunderbird. If I cannot communicate with all my club members, then Thunderbird suddenly becomes useless to me and I will have to look for an alternative.
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The error is generated by Earthlink, not TB. TB has a limit of 60 contacts per message, unless you send to a mailing list, where the limit is set by the mail provider, typically 100 contacts per message. Find out from Earthlink support.

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The error is generated by Earthlink, not TB. TB has a limit of 60 contacts per message, unless you send to a mailing list, where the limit is set by the mail provider, typically 100 contacts per message. Find out from Earthlink support.

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Well, I did suspect that Earthlink might be the culprit, despite their denial, because the error message clearly said that the error message came from the Email server.

But the numbers you mention as Thunderbird's maximums still seem too low at 60 or even 100 contacts. Up until about 2 weeks ago, I have been successfully using Thunderbird for many years to send out emails to anywhere between 150 - 300 people.

So, did Thunderbird also recently tighten the number of allowed recipients in an email?

And why would any of these limits be necessary? I understand that we want to put a stop to spam, but the reality is that spammers can send out emails to thousands of people. All they have to do is pay a bit more for the privilege. Commercial accounts have much higher limits (if any). So, why penalize common people who simply want to communicate with their social circle, ... in my case: a ski club?

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The limit of 60 in TB is only if the contacts are entered individually, not in a mailing list, and I'm not aware that this has changed. If you were previously sending to 150-300 contacts in a mailing list, then if that is no longer possible, there probably was a change at Earthlink. I would suggest you use another mail provider with known limits, or a service like MailChimp.