Email Sending Limits and Sending Bulk Emails
Beginning February 1, 2025, faculty and staff will be limited to sending no more than 300 emails per hour, using their Southeast email account.
Students have already been limited in this way.
Compromised accounts are typically used to bulk send phishing emails to the campus community… leading to more compromised accounts. These phishing emails are normally sent in large sets of thousands of addresses. By setting a limit on the number of emails sent per hour, we also limit the impact of compromised accounts while providing a quick mechanism to catch and mitigate the compromise.
With normal email use, faculty and staff will never reach the 300 limit.
NOTE: Sending emails through the campus listserv or through a 3rd party service (i.e. Constant Contact) are not impacted by this limitation.
If faculty and staff do have a need to send larger quantities of email, there are two options available:
1. Request an Exception
An exception to this sending limit can be requested for a specific email account. Exceptions will be considered for department or office accounts (i.e. helpdesk@semo.edu or registrar@semo.edu). Personal email accounts should not be used to send bulk emails. To request an exception, see the links to the right.
2. Request a Mailing List through the campus listserv system
In some cases it might make sense to setup a traditional "listserv" for sending bulk email. A listserv is an email list management software program. Email list management software makes it easy to administer email lists, performing in seconds the functions that would otherwise have to be done manually, possibly taking many hours or days to complete. Introduced in 1986 on BITNET, LISTSERV was the first software program to automate the administration of email lists. It is the most time-tested and reliable email list management product on the market today.
Email list recipients can be automatically updated by Banner (for example: a list of students in a particular college), versus a personal email distribution list.
NOTE: The above options do not apply to student email accounts. Students should NOT be sending bulk emails. If a student needs to send bulk email on behalf of a student club or organization, the student should contact the adviser for that club or organization.
If you have questions as to which method might be best for your particular situation, contact the IT Help Desk for further assistance at 573.651.4357 or via email at helpdesk@semo.edu.