How far will 'mail()' go?

reagent

I have been using the mail() function to send emails from my site. Actually, It's a modified version, as I pipe the output directly to sendmail instead.

I have accumulated over 400 emails as a result of people signing up for newsletters on various portions of the site. I will be sending out this newsletter weekly to all these subscribers.

In the past, this has worked fine, but now I'll be sending html email, so it may be a little bit larger. Ideally, I would like to send out one email to each subscriber, so that I can provide them w/ a customized 'remove' link that REALLY does remove them from the email list (i'm not spamming 😉)

So at what point is the load on the server/php/sendmail too high, and what can I do about it? I was also thinking of just sending out one email with 400 BCC: email addresses as well...

any help is appreciated
p.

Anon

I've been using the mail function to send a newsletter to over 2500 subcribers without severe server load. I use a script that retrieves the user's name and email address from a db to send a personal email including unsubscribe link to each one. Using the sleep function to pause between each mailing reduces the load.

Anon

Well, the difference between plain text and html email is really not that much (extra headers, html code overhead etc). If you plan on piping the output to sendmail, then the most arduous part of the process will be in sendmail, which shouldn't adverseley effect your webserver (unless it's a dreamcast or gameboy, then we need to talk).

The best bet would be to try using the mail() function. It's the easiest route to take, and the php4 architecture (I trust that's what you're using) is geared up for all this intensive malarkey. If it does go pear-shaped using that, then either go for piping it to sendmail, or coding your own smtp gateway in php (which isn't that hard, but it can get tricky).

hope that helped!

Dave

reagent

Thanks for the responses.
Dave, I stopped using the mail() function because it does not support adding the 'Return-Path:' header. Although the documentation shows an example, this was something I had to dig for to find the solution to. Of course, the solution is to open a pipe to sendmail and force the sender w/ the -f option.

It seems to work faster this way rather than using the 'mail()' function for some reason. I wonder if using sleep() between calls would improve even more

thanks again
p

reagent

Will,
How long do you 'sleep()' between calls?