Sending & saving emails
Composing and sending email from Insightly, scheduling it, saving inbound mail to records, and tracking opens and clicks.
On this page:
- Sending from Insightly
- Individual sending versus group email
- Five ways to start an email
- Composing a message
- Scheduling
- Limits
- AI features
- Saving email to a record
- Email tracking
Sending from Insightly
Connect one or more email accounts first, then compose in the CRM and send to leads and contacts.
Messages go out through your own email account, so they appear in your email program’s Sent folder. Replies arrive in that account’s inbox rather than in Insightly, unless email sync is set up. Everything sent from Insightly is saved and linked to the relevant leads or contacts, and appears under Emails > My Sent Emails.
With several accounts connected you choose which address appears on the From line.
Synced Email account users see messages grouped into threaded conversations. See Email Inbox Sync.
ℹ️ For campaigns to large groups rather than individual outreach, Insightly Marketing is the product for that.
You can also click any email address link in Insightly to open your default email program, if you would rather compose there.
Individual sending versus group email
Individual sending is the default. Each recipient gets a separate message and cannot see the others. Templates and merge fields both work.
Group email puts every recipient on one thread. Templates and merge fields do not work.
Five ways to start an email
- To one lead or contact. From the record, click Actions and select Email This Lead or Email This Contact.
- To several. From the Leads or Contacts object, select up to 50 records and click Send Email. Records with no email address are removed from the recipient list automatically.
- From the Emails object. Click New Email.
- From a template. In the Emails object, click Email Templates above the list, open a template, click Actions, and select New Email from Template.
- From the Related Contacts grid on an Organization, Opportunity, or Project. Click Email Contacts, and templates for the contact, organization, project, or opportunity become available.
Composing a message
- Enter recipients by name or email address in the To: field, up to 50 at a time.
- Choose the sending mode. Individual sending is the default checkbox.
- With more than one account connected, pick the address in the From: list.
- Click CC/BCC to add those fields.
- Select a template if you are using one. Individual sending only.
- Enter the subject line. It is required.
- Enter the body. The toolbar handles formatting and hyperlinks, and Insert Fields adds merge fields that resolve per recipient.
- Click Browse below the body to attach a file.
- Check the Preview step, which shows how merge fields resolve for each recipient.
- Click Send, or Schedule on a paid plan.
⚠️ CC and BCC each hold two recipients, raised to eight on the CRM Enterprise plan.
⚠️ Attachments cannot exceed 25MB per message.
⚠️ Per-recipient body editing is no longer supported within a single send. The preview shows how merge fields resolve, but the body itself cannot be varied per recipient. Send separately if the content needs to differ.
ℹ️ Write a template as though sending to one person, and leave out exclamation points and similar punctuation, which helps keep the message out of spam folders.
Scheduling
Available on Plus, Professional, and Enterprise. Pick a date and time within the next 7 days and the messages queue for sending.
Scheduled email counts against the daily limit for the date it is scheduled to send, not the date you compose it. If that day’s limit is already reached, Insightly tells you.
⚠️ Scheduled emails cannot be rescheduled. Delete the email and create it again. To cancel one, delete it before its send date.
Limits
The daily limit is per account, covering all users, not per user. It resets at midnight UTC/GMT.
| Plan | Daily email limit |
|---|---|
| Plus | 2,500 |
| Professional | 5,000 |
| Enterprise | 10,000 |
| Trial | 100 |
Batch limit: up to 50 leads or contacts selected at a time.
AI features
Available to all users, working across whole threads on Synced Email accounts or on individual emails otherwise. Summarize Thread produces a summary of the conversation history. Generate Reply drafts a context-aware reply into the send/reply modal.
Saving email to a record
Forwarding or CCing your Insightly mailbox saves a copy, and those emails link themselves to contacts and organizations automatically.
On an organization record, the Email Domain field routes inbound mail. Enter thiscompany.com and every email from an address ending @thiscompany.com links to that organization.
Opportunities, leads, and projects each have their own mailbox address, specific to both the record and the user. Sending to it links the message to you, to that record, and to any contacts and organizations whose addresses appear in the header. The address is on the record in the Link Email Address field; right-click the clipboard icon beside it to copy.
- Forwarding a message you received: put the address in the To: field.
- Saving a copy of a message you are sending: put the address in the CC field.
⚠️ Put nothing else in the To: field when forwarding to a record mailbox. Other addresses there break the linking.
ℹ️ Save the mailbox address as a contact in your email program under a name you will recognize, such as “Insightly Opp - A Great Opportunity”, rather than copying it each time.
ℹ️ If a mailbox address starts receiving spam, you can generate a new one for it from the same place you copy the address, so switching addresses does not require a support request.
To, CC, and BCC behave differently
| Field | What happens |
| To | Insightly scans the first 10 lines of the forwarded message's body for email addresses and domains from the original header. It does not link based on other addresses in the To, CC, or BCC fields of the forward itself. |
| CC | Insightly reviews the To field of the message you're sending for matching addresses and domains. If a record's mailbox address is CC'd, the email links to that record as well as any related contacts and organizations. Use one or the other, not both a record's mailbox address and your personal one on the same message. |
| BCC | Linking is less reliable here, since it depends on how much information your email provider exposes in a BCC'd copy. If linking isn't working through BCC, use CC instead. |
Auto-forwarding does not work
⚠️ Insightly rejects auto-forwarded and auto-assigned messages. Rules that forward mail automatically will not save anything. Forward individually instead.
This is deliberate. Not everything arriving in your inbox belongs in a shared CRM, and saved email counts against your account’s storage maximum, so forwarding everything can push you into an upgrade you did not need. The Gmail and Outlook sidebars save relevant messages in one click.
What happens when a message is saved
Saving through the Gmail or Outlook sidebar produces one Email record, linked as follows:
- To contacts with matching email addresses.
- To organizations with matching email domains.
- To a matching lead, if no matching contact was found.
- If nothing matches, a new contact record and a new organization record are created and linked.
The link appears in the Activity subtab of every linked record.
⚠️ Executable and script attachments are blocked, the same list as on the Related tab: .ade, .adp, .apk, .appx, .appxbundle, .bat, .cab, .chm, .cmd, .com, .cpl, .diagcab, .diagcfg, .diagpack, .dll, .dmg, .ex, .ex_, .exe, .hta, .img, .ins, .iso, .isp, .jar, .jnlp, .js, .jse, .lib, .lnk, .mde, .msc, .msi, .msix, .msixbundle, .msp, .mst, .nsh, .pif, .ps1, .scr, .sct, .shb, .sys, .vb, .vbe, .vbs, .vhd, .vxd, .wsc, .wsf, .wsh, .xll
Email tracking
Insightly can report opened emails, clicked links, and template averages for both.
Tracking is off by default, because recipients cannot tell it is happening.
⚠️ Get explicit consent before enabling tracking. Recipients are not told they are being tracked, and you are responsible for meeting the legal requirements that apply to you.
To enable: go to System Settings > Email Tracking and check Enable Email Tracking. From then on all new emails sent from Insightly are tracked.
Three constraints:
- Paid plans only. Not available on trials.
- The email has to use a template and be sent from Insightly.
- Tracking links expire after 30 days.
Emails sent before the setting was enabled carry no trackers, so no metrics exist for them.