How to Create and Manage Email Lists in the Mail Room

A Mail Room list is the group of people you send to. Build one once, then reuse it every time you email, text, or mail that audience.

Create A List

1. Go to Communication > Manage Mailing Lists.
2. Click Add A New List.
3. In the Add A New Mail Room List window, switch on the list type you need: Email, Text (SMS), or Postal Mail. You can switch on more than one, and Argenta creates a list of each type you picked.
4. Type a Mail List Title. Make it specific, something like "Newsletter Subscribers" or "2026 Gala Attendees". A title can be up to 150 characters. If you already have a list of that type with the same name, Argenta warns you once; click Add This List again to create it anyway. Two lists can share a name, so wherever you pick a list to send to, each one shows its member count beside its name. On an email list that count is email addresses, so two people who share one address count once.
5. Click Add This List.

Manage Mailing Lists, with Add A New List.

Switch on the list types you need, name it, then Add This List.

Add People To It

Two routes, depending on whether you are adding a few people or a whole segment.

One at a time, from the list:

1. Open the list from Manage Mailing Lists.
2. Click Add A Constituent.
3. Search for the person and add them.

Inside a list, Add A Constituent adds one person at a time.

In bulk, from a grid:

1. Go to Constituents (or Donors, Volunteers, Members, or another module) and filter to the people you want.
2. Select the records with the checkboxes.
3. Open the bulk actions menu and choose Create A New Mailroom List With Selected Records, or Add Selected Records To An Existing Mailroom List. These Mail Room actions only appear for users with the Mail Room Manager permission, and for Master Admins. If you are not a Master Admin, anyone whose record is locked or set to view only for you is left off the list, and the message tells you how many were skipped.

Both mail room options sit under Mail Room Management in the bulk actions menu.

Work With An Existing List

Each row on Manage Mailing Lists has a set of actions:

• Open List: view and edit the members.
• Turn this into a Smart List: on email lists, the wand icon converts the list to a rule-driven Smart List that keeps its own membership up to date. On a list that is already smart, the same icon edits the rule.
• Copy List: duplicate it as a starting point for a new audience.
• Delete List: remove it.

1 Open List, 2 Turn this into a Smart List, 3 Copy List, 4 Delete List.

Who owns a list

Every list has an Owner, shown on its row on Manage Mailing Lists. A new list belongs to the person who created it. To hand a list to a teammate:

1. Click Open List on its row, then List Details in the list's Workspace Menu.
2. Pick the person under Owner:.
3. Click Save All & Continue or Save All & Exit.

To see only some people's lists, click Show Filter on Manage Mailing Lists, choose All Owners, My Lists or one person under Owner, and click Apply Filter. The page remembers the filter you applied. The owner decides only where a list is filed. Locking a list or setting it to view only still works from the person who created it.

Each row names its owner.

Change the owner on List Details.

Filter the page to My Lists or to one person's lists.

Inside a list you also get Export List to pull the members to a spreadsheet, two switches that widen what the member list shows, and bulk actions to Add Engagement for Selected Constituents or Remove All Selected Constituents from List.

Both switches change what you see on this page, not who gets mail. Include "No Solicit" Constituents In List brings back anyone marked No Solicit. Include Constituents Who Cannot Receive Email brings back members the list cannot reach: anyone marked deceased, and anyone whose own record has email, postal mail or text switched off. Both are off when you open the page, and this is the only page a member can be removed from, so turn them on when somebody you know is on the list will not show up in it.

Export List, and the two switches above the member list.

The bulk actions available inside a list.

Why Your Send Count Is Lower Than Your List Count

An email list can hold more people than it will actually reach, and that gap is deliberate. Every email list shows you its own breakdown right on the row:

• Subscribed: will receive marketing email.
• Unsubscribed: withdrew marketing consent, by their own unsubscribe click or by the Do Not Solicit flag.
• Cleaned: the address is dead, from a hard bounce, a spam complaint, or a suppression.
• Unreachable: no email address on file, flagged Do Not Email, or marked deceased on the constituent record.

A count only appears when it is above zero, so a healthy list often shows nothing but a subscribed number. Those breakdown numbers use the same rules the sender uses, so what you see on the list matches what actually happens when you send.

This list holds 29 people and reaches 22. The seven cleaned addresses are dead.

Send To The List

Go to Communication > Mail Room and click Send Email. Under Send To, choose A Mail Room List and pick your list; Argenta shows how many people it will reach before you send. To send a saved template, open it and click Use This Template, which brings it to the same page. See How to Send an Email From the Mail Room.

On Send Email, choose A Mail Room List under Send To, then pick the list.

Keeping Lists Healthy

• Name lists so someone else on your team can tell what they are without opening them.
• Let Smart Lists do the upkeep for audiences defined by a rule instead of re-adding people by hand.
• Check the Cleaned count now and then. Repeatedly mailing dead addresses hurts your sender reputation.
• Build separate lists for separate purposes rather than one giant list you filter every time.