Jul 4, 2025
How Many Emails Can Be Sent at Once in Gmail?
Gmail has strict limits regarding the number of emails you can send per day. For a free Gmail account, the limit is set at 500 emails. If you’re sending a few emails a day, this may not be a problem. However, if you’re a busy website, online shop, or someone who needs to reach a large audience quickly, this limit can be a problem. The cap on paid Google Workspace accounts jumps significantly to 2,000 emails. This higher limit is a game-changer for businesses that rely on email communication. If you send too many emails too quickly, you may be unable to send more when you need to. So knowing the rules helps you stay within Gmail’s guidelines and keeps your email flow smooth and uninterrupted.
Daily, Hourly, and Per Minute Limits
Gmail has multiple limits, depending on your perspective. Let’s divide them down into daily, hourly, and per-minute categories to see how it may affect you:
Daily Limits
Based on my research, anyone using a free Gmail account can send up to 500 emails in one day. Of course, if you have a paid Google Workspace account, the daily limit increases to 2,000 emails. GMass users, however, have a unique advantage, as they can send up to 10,000 emails every 24 hours by connecting to a Google Workspace account, making it a powerful tool for large-scale email campaigns.
Hourly Limits
Gmail is less clear about specific hourly limits, but it’s understood that these exist to stop spamming activities. Although some resources around the web suggest that you can send 20 outgoing emails per hour, this has not yet been verified. Gmail does enforce a rate limit. This means if you send emails too quickly, you might encounter a “rate limit exceeded” error, regardless of whether you’re using a free Gmail account or a Paid Google Workspace account. That said, my advice is to monitor your email activities to ensure you don’t hit these rate limits. Spread out your email sends over time to avoid exceeding the thresholds implicitly enforced by Gmail’s system.
Per Minute Limits
Similar to hourly limits, there are specific per-minute restrictions in place, but Google doesn’t explicitly provide a number. This may prompt you to wonder, “Why does Google impose per-minute limits?” These are designed to catch and prevent spam-like behavior in real-time. If you send too many emails too fast, you might get stopped in your tracks. This emphasizes the importance of spreading out your sends.
Recipient Limits by Gmail
Google’s sending limits are based on the number of emails sent, not the number of recipients per email. If you are using a free Gmail account and send 1 email to 500 recipients, Google counts it as sending 500 emails towards your sending limit. To make things more straightforward, here’s another example:
If you send one email to 500 recipients or five emails to 100 recipients, both will count towards the 500 limit.
Google counts each email as a single email, and the limit applies over 24 hours. Also, the same rules apply if you’re using an alias. When you use an email alias, such as marketing@example.com, alongside your primary email, like yourname@example.com, both are considered one in Gmail’s eyes. This means, together, they can send up to 500 emails a day if you’re using the free version of Gmail, up to 2,000 emails if you’re on a Google Workspace account, and 10,000 emails if you’re a GMass user. All emails sent from your primary address and any aliases add up to the exact daily total.
BCC Limits by Gmail
When sending an email through Gmail, whether I add recipients in the ‘To’, ‘CC’, or ‘BCC’ fields, each one is counted separately by Google. This means that using the ‘BCC’ field doesn’t allow you to send to more people than the daily limit allows. For free Gmail users, the cap is 500 emails per day; for Google Workspace users, it’s 2,000; and for GMass users, it’s approximately 10,000 emails daily. People often use ‘BCC’ to send emails to multiple recipients without revealing everyone’s email addresses. This method keeps email addresses private from other list members. It’s not the most up-to-date method for handling mass emails. In the past, big email services were expensive, but now they are much more affordable.
Why Does Gmail Have Sending Limits?
Gmail (Google) itself has stated why it has sending limits. Here’s my breakdown of the reasons:
Prevent spam
The primary purpose of Gmail’s send limits is to fight spam. Google explicitly notes that it restricts the number of emails you can send “to help prevent spam”.
Security
The primary purpose of Gmail’s sending limit is to detect and prevent potential abuse, thereby protecting its users from malicious activities such as account hijacking and phishing attacks. In Google’s words, these limits help “keep accounts safe”, stopping suspicious mass emailing if an account is compromised.
Server Performance and Stability
Gmail also enforces sending limits to maintain the health and stability of its email servers. High-volume emailing by a single user could strain resources, so Google sets thresholds to “keep systems healthy”.
Comply With Regulations
Gmail’s sending limits help Google adhere to laws, regulations, and industry standards related to email. Google must comply with various anti-spam laws and privacy regulations (for example, the CAN-SPAM Act and data protection laws) in its email practices.
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What Happens if You Go Over Gmail’s Sending Limits?
Gmail’s sending limits help maintain the platform’s security and functionality. When you exceed these limits, Gmail takes note and may temporarily suspend your account to prevent further abuse. The higher your email activity, the more likely you are to trigger Gmail’s rate limits. To avoid this, consider using a bulk email sender to manage your outreach.
Temporary Account Suspension
If you surpass the Gmail sending limit per day, your account may be suspended for a day with the error “550 5.4.5 Daily sending quota exceeded”. You can only receive emails during this time! Once the suspension period ends, you can start sending emails again. However, please note that if you repeatedly exceed the limit, Gmail may impose longer suspensions or even permanently restrict your account.
Pro Tip: If you need to send more emails regularly, I recommend using an SMTP relay service.
Gmail Error Messages
Apart from the above, Gmail will also throw some error messages like the ones below:
1. You Have Reached a Limit for Sending Mail
According to Google’s documentation: “You may see this message if you send an email to a total of more than 500 recipients in a single email and or more than 500 emails sent in a day. When you get this error, you should be able to send emails again within 1 to 24 hours.”
2. A Contact Is Getting Too Much Mail
If someone you’re sending mail to is getting too many emails too fast, you might see this message: “The user you are trying to contact is receiving mail at a rate that prevents additional messages from being delivered.” You’ll need to contact the person another way. If your email account has already been suspended, here is how to restore it.
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• Professional Email Example
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• Email Audit
• Targeted Lead Generation
• Cold Email Personalization
How to Increase Your Email Sending Limit Safely
When sending mass emails, it can be helpful to segment your email list into smaller groups. Instead of blasting everyone on your list with the same email, this process allows you to send more targeted, personalized messages that are likely to reach the right people without hitting Gmail’s sending limits. Here are some simple strategies to help you do just that, especially for newsletters and promotional emails:
Divide by Interest: Group your contacts based on what they like or need. For example, if you sell clothes and toys, send emails about clothes to those interested in fashion and emails about toys to those interested in kids’ items.
Sort by Activity: Send emails to people based on how they interact with your emails. Someone who opens all your emails might be more interested in a daily update, while others might prefer a weekly summary.
Location-Based Groups: If your business or message is more relevant to certain places, group your contacts by their location. This way, you can send targeted information that they’ll find helpful.
Frequency Preferences: Ask your subscribers how often they want to hear from you and group them accordingly. Some may wish to every update, while others might only want to know about big sales or events.
By dividing your email list into smaller, more focused groups, you can send more targeted and engaging emails. This not only helps you stay within Gmail’s limits but also increases the likelihood that your emails will be read and appreciated.
Using Multiple Accounts to Increase Limits
The easiest solution to going over the sending limits is to have more email accounts! You can add more accounts to your Google Workspace account. This will increase the overall email volume you can send. That said, managing multiple accounts and manually sending emails from each account can be time-consuming and inefficient.
Using Google Groups to Send Fewer Emails
If your audience belongs to a particular group, you can create a Google Group and send an email to the group instead of individual recipients. This way, Gmail counts it as sending to one recipient, even if the group contains multiple members. Cool right? But there are some catches!
Only works with Google Groups email addresses (e.g., marketing-team@yourcompany.com).
Recipients must be subscribed to the group to receive emails.
Not ideal for cold outreach, as you can’t add external contacts dynamically.
As you can see, both the processes you saw is not as straightforward as simply increasing your sending limit. While these methods help extend your email reach, they come with their own limitations and require careful management.
Using Third-Party Tools to Increase Email Limits
You can use reputable third-party software to safely increase your sending limit without having to go through any complex manual processes. For example, you can use software like Saleshandy to safely increase your email sending limit without triggering spam filters or getting your account blocked. You can easily send 10,000 emails in a day!
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