mail() limits??

[azurian]

I want to create a mailing list using a SQL database and a PHP script using the mail() function.

I predict that there could be 4-500 members on the mailing list. Is there any limit on the mail() function, or will this number of members be OK?

Thanks.

[planetsim]

You'll probably find it will time out after 'x' number of emails sent out. Id try and email maybe 100-500 members at a time use a pagination script so you can get the next 100-500members.

[Frederick]

There are 2 other areas to take into measure. Most hostings have thier max_execution_time preset to 30 seconds in the php.ini and can not be change using the ini_set() function.

max_execution_time = 30 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds

If your hostings bandwidth is bogged down, your script will timeout.
If you send your email out using HTML format, you will only get about 100-150 emails sent based on hosting bandwidth load.
If you send out in plain text format, you will get about 500-700 emails sent.

Most mass mailing severs have their php.ini's set to 120-180 seconds, that is why mass mailing services get large number of mailings sent out.