Wondering how many messages you can send per day from Gmail, or how many recipients a message can have? Find out here how many people you can email at once in Gmail (including how many BCC email addresses per message) for the web interface, apps, and SMTP.
First, Pits for the Whole Year
Some 10,000 years ago, people in today’s Scotland dug twelve pits curiously arranged in a semicircle.
if you follow the somewhat imaginative reasoning, the pits relate to the moon’s phases throughout the year and can be used as a rudimentary calendar, counting the 12-and-then-some lunar cycles through the seasons.
Amazingly, a way to align the calendar with sunrise at midwinter solstice even resets the lunar counting to the solar-annual cycle every year.
Now, full moon or new, want to know how Gmail counts email recipients and messages sent, attachment sizes and the limits for — and how you can reset them?
Here’s How Many Email Addresses You Can Email and BCC in Gmail
When you send email through Gmail (that is using the Gmail web interface, a Gmail app, or an email client that uses SMTP to send through your Gmail account), the following limits apply:
| Action | Interface | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Recipients for a single email (in all address fields combined, To, Cc and BCC) and 24 hours | Web, Gmail app | 500 |
| Email recipients per 24 hours in total (where each recipient counts as a separate email) | Web, Gmail app | 500 |
| Recipients for a single email and 24 hours | SMTP, API | 100 |
| Email recipients per 24 hours in total | SMTP, API | 100 |
| Total message size | Web, Gmail app, API, SMTP | 25 MB |
| Individual attachment file size | Web, Gmail app, API, SMTP | 25 MB |
Gmail Sending Limit Considerations
Note that each email recipient counts towards the limit.
Example: If you send a message with one person in the To: field and fifteen in the Cc or Bcc list, Gmail counts sixteen outgoing emails.
That is, you can send
- up to five hundred emails to one recipient each OR
- one email to five hundred addresses
- in a rolling 24-hour period.
Example: If you send one message to 250 recipients now and another with 250 recipients in 2 hours, you then have to wait 22 hours to have another allowance of 250 recipients.
Important: For specific accounts — especially new ones — the limit may be drastically lower.
Gmail employs models to detect atypical behavior. If your address has sent 15 emails per week in the past and suddenly starts sending 250 in 10 minutes, chances are Gmail will assume your account has been hacked or hijacked and will consequently block it from sending.
More Gmail limits:
These Are the Gmail Limits for Receiving Email
This Is the Maximum Attachment Size for Gmail
Here’s How Many Email Addresses You Can Email and BCC in Gmail: FAQ
Can I change the limits?
No, you cannot directly alter your Gmail account’s sending limits.
How many email addresses can you BCC in Gmail at once?
Assuming you have no addresses in the To: and Cc: fields:
- You can BCC 500 email addresses at most in Gmail for a single email using the web or the Gmail app
Note the overall Gmail sending limit still applies, and you can email 500 BCC recipients again only after waiting for 24 hours.
If you use the Gmail SMTP server, you can BCC up to one hundred recipients every 24 hours.
I’ve reached the Gmail limit for number of emails to send; what can I do?
When you have sent the maximum number of emails In Gmail, wait 24 hours, during which time you make no attempt at sending.
Since every delivery attempt may count against the limit, all it possibly does is
- extend the limit further into the future and
- increase the risk of your account getting blocked altogether.
For sending lots of mail, what are my alternatives?
To send a large number of emails in bulk reliably, it is best to rely on a bulk email service.
As a simple and free service for mailing lists, try Google Groups.
(How many email addresses you can send a BCC copy in Gmail first published August 2020, last updated April 2024)