# Is there a \*\*simple\*\* way to automatically email messages to an external email distribution list

**URL:** <https://forum.mattermost.com/t/is-there-a-simple-way-to-automatically-email-messages-to-an-external-email-distribution-list/1135>\
**Category:** Troubleshooting\
**Created:** [March 23, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/is-there-a-simple-way-to-automatically-email-messages-to-an-external-email-distribution-list/1135 "2016-03-23T13:58:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BlueAnanas](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mattermost.com/blueananas/32/543_2.png) [@BlueAnanas](https://forum.mattermost.com/u/BlueAnanas)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/is-there-a-simple-way-to-automatically-email-messages-to-an-external-email-distribution-list/1135/1 "2016-03-23T13:58:09Z")

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After the introduction of mattermost there are always people lagging behind and sticking to their beloved mailing lists 😢 Unfortunately you can’t always just don’t care. The best would be if these people would get the messages posted in mattermost into the Email.

There seem to be alot of possibilities with outgoing webhooks, but setting up a whole web-to -email gateway for a couple of jerks wishing to stay in stone age of communication is just too much. 😆

Any ideas?

I came up with the idea to set up a specific user called “mailer” which email points to the distribution list email. If someone mentions @mailer in his message then, the message gets distributed to the people still on the mailing list. Unfortunately this is still too wacky for production because:

- The subject line is messy. Is there any way to have at least something like “Message from Mattermost” maybe even mention the user who has written the message?
- The Mail body is messy as well. Is there any possibility to put the message first and the rest of the Mattermost mentions and channel links somewhere on the bottom?
- All sort of notificationswill go through. Is there a possibility to have Email **only** on mentions?

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**Author:** ![jwilander](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mattermost.com/jwilander/32/8440_2.png) [@jwilander](https://forum.mattermost.com/u/jwilander)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 12:19pm UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/is-there-a-simple-way-to-automatically-email-messages-to-an-external-email-distribution-list/1135/2 "2016-03-24T12:19:40Z")

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Hi @BlueAnanas,

Your best option for a more immediate solution would be to make use of the outgoing webhooks and build some sort of small hosted application that will receive the events anytime `@mailer` (or some other trigger word) is at the start of a message and the compose the email just as you like it, and fire it off to your distribution list.

That said configurable mention email subjects and bodies is something that I can see being useful and if you’d like you can submit a feature request [here](https://www.mattermost.org/feature-requests/) for that.

If you were to configure a single `mailer` user then you could change that user’s notifications to only go through on mentions. You can do this in _Account Settings_ -\> _Notifications_ -\> _Words that trigger mentions_ and click off everything but the mention field.

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**Author:** ![BlueAnanas](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mattermost.com/blueananas/32/543_2.png) [@BlueAnanas](https://forum.mattermost.com/u/BlueAnanas)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/is-there-a-simple-way-to-automatically-email-messages-to-an-external-email-distribution-list/1135/3 "2016-03-24T13:03:18Z")

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[quote=“jwilander, post:2, topic:1135”]  
some sort of small hosted application  
[/quote]is exactly what i wanted to avoid. An external hoster is a no go and would make more Email troubles. But setting up another tomcat or django battleship?

Did anyone already think about some community written extensions or plugins which the administrator could add to run on the Mattermost server itself?

Meanwhile I’ll have a look on the notification email generating code 🤓

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**Author:** ![it33](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mattermost.com/it33/32/3_2.png) [@it33](https://forum.mattermost.com/u/it33)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://forum.mattermost.com/t/is-there-a-simple-way-to-automatically-email-messages-to-an-external-email-distribution-list/1135/4 "2016-03-28T17:52:06Z")

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There’s multiple email integrations for moving email into Mattermost via [community applications](http://www.mattermost.org/community-applications/) (look for “mail” on page to find email and mailing list references).

If you create something here and decide to share it back with the community, please [let us know so we can help promote your work](http://www.mattermost.org/share-your-mattermost-projects/),