Guide

Cold email from your own Gmail, done safely

Sending from your own address is the most personal kind of cold email. Here is how to do it without risking your mailbox.

Own mailbox or separate domains?

Most cold email tools send from extra domains that look like yours, so your real domain is never at risk. The cost is that the email is not really from you: replies land somewhere else, and prospects can tell. Sending from your own Gmail is the opposite trade: it is more personal and every reply is in your inbox, so volume must stay low and the emails must be worth receiving.

Rules for sending cold email from your own Gmail

1. Start small. 20 a day at first, rising slowly. Google's own limits are far higher, but they are not a target.
2. Send in their working hours, spaced out, not in a burst.
3. One-click unsubscribe. Include a List-Unsubscribe header and honour opt-outs immediately.
4. Stop at the first sign of trouble. A few bounces in a row should pause sending, not just raise a warning.
5. Check addresses first. Do not write to a domain that cannot receive mail.
6. Write something worth reading. A specific, true line about them beats any template.

How Honest Intros sends from your Gmail

You sign in with Google once; that is both your login and your sender. Honest Intros sends only emails you approved, through Google's own API, in the recipient's working hours, 20 a day at first and never more than 50. It pauses by itself when bounces rise, adds one-click unsubscribe to every email, and reads only the threads it started.

Questions