Email

How to send email with OneSignal.

This page explains how to send emails from your OneSignal dashboard. If you haven't followed all Email setup steps, it is recommended to do so before sending. If this is your first time sending email with OneSignal, we recommend using Email Auto Warm Up and checking your email lists to ensure high Email deliverability.

Other options for sending email through OneSignal include:

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Email deliverability

Its highly recommended to follow the steps outlined in Email deliverability to make sure you follow our Email Acceptable Use Policy & Code of Conduct to keep your account in good standing and maintain high deliverability to your users.

Send emails from your dashboard

Navigate to Messages > Email to create a new email message.

New email form.

New email form.

Optional: Input a Message Name for internal recognition of the message.

1. Audience

These are the Segments in which to include and exclude from receiving the message.

You can include multiple segments. Every email address in each included segment will be sent the message. If an email address belongs to multiple included segments, we will automatically deduplicate it from sending more than once.

Excluded segments contain email addresses that should not be sent the message. Any email addresses within the included and excluded segment will not be sent the message.

Example will send to all email addresses except those that are within the "Engaged Subscriptions" segment.

Example will send to all email addresses except those that are within the "Engaged Subscriptions" segment.

2. Sender

Set the name and email address in which the email will be coming "from". This will be displayed in your audience's mailbox. Additionally, configure the Reply-To address for customer replies.

This defaults to what you set in Settings > Email > Sender. However, you can override these settings for individual emails here.

These fields support Message Personalization.

3. Message

Select how you want to compose your message.

Options include:

  • Drag & Drop Editor - Our Drag and Drop Builder lets you visually design and build your emails just as they'll be seen in your users' inbox.
  • HTML Editor - The HTML editor allows you to create highly stylized and branded emails, allowing you to control every aspect of your email design for both mobile and desktop.
  • Start with a template - Pick up where you left off. Templates are reusable designs and we provide several options to import your templates created from other sources.

Once you select your editing experience, you will have the additional options:

Options available when creating your message. These are the same on both Drag-and-Drop or HTML editors.

Options available when creating your message. These are the same on both Drag-and-Drop or HTML editors.


  • Subject - The email's subject displayed in the inbox.
  • Preheader Text - This text will show in the inbox next to the subject.

Both fields support Message Personalization and emojis. However, emojis are not recommended because they may not show correctly in every Inbox.

  • Advanced Settings
    • Track link clicks - enable or disable link tracking. May be required for Deep linking.
    • Include sending to unsubscribed users - helpful for important or required compliance emails but should not be used for marketing emails. See Email Regulatory Compliance for details.
  • Dynamic Content - build personalized messages with specific content for different audience groups.
  • A/B Testing - send up to 10 different emails to see which performs better!
  • Save as Template - save your progress to come back later.
  • Test & Preview - see how your message looks in real life. Great for testing across different Inbox Service Providers.

4. Delivery schedule

Emails can be sent immediately or scheduled up to 30 days in advance. If this is your first send, see Email Auto Warm Up for details on this helpful feature.

Per user optimization

You can choose to send to everyone at the "start sending" time or set a specific time that each user should receive it based on their own timezone. If the user doesn't have the timezone_id property set, you can specify a fallback timezone. The fallback timezone should be based on where most of your users are located.

Example shows the email will start sending Nov 9th at 6PM your time, but will be delivered to each user at 9AM in their timezones with a fallback time to UTC-8 if the email address doesn't have a timezone set.

Example shows the email will start sending Nov 9th at 6PM your time, but will be delivered to each user at 9AM in their timezones with a fallback time to UTC-8 if the email address doesn't have a timezone set.


The "start sending" time is the cutoff point for users to enter/exit the audience segments. Anyone in the audience at this time will be sent the message and it does not depend on the "per user optimization" options.

When ready, click Review & Send or Save the message as a Draft to come back to later.

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Done!

You are all set to start sending emails! Next steps include: