Aug 25, 2026, 10:28 PMMastodon admins!
If you have extremely urgent info (e.g. data breach warnings, server closure announcements) you can email it directly to your users:
1. Go to Preferences > Administration > Announcements
2. If you haven't already, create & publish urgent announcement
3. After announcement has been published, go back to Preferences > Administration > Announcements and click "✉️ Notify Users" below urgent announcement
4. Check email is correct, then click "Send X emails"
Aug 25, 2026, 10:30 PMp.s. DO NOT use the email notify feature for routine announcements. Emailing all your users directly is only suitable for emergencies.
Non-emergency use of mass emailing may be regarded as spamming, and could destroy your ability to reach people when an emergency happens.
If you have a routine announcement, publish the announcement but do not click on "notify users".
Or not. There is no guaranteed delivery via email.
Aug 25, 2026, 10:48 PMThe announcement is also visible to everyone logged into the server's website and some mobile apps, it appears as a banner at the top of the screen.
Exactly. So why waste bandwidth and leak information thru untrustable email servers?
This is a bad feature, best left unused.
Aug 25, 2026, 11:33 PMBecause the announcement isn't visible on all apps, and some people don't notice announcements on websites any more due to irritating banners and fake announcements on commercial websites.
@homegrown also be careful .. this is going to notify all instance users.
So.. make sure your SMTP / email plan can submit that many messages. (some/most will queue things up and trickle them out as allowed if hitting any limits..)
Check your hourly / daily / monthly send limits.