Announcements Forum   •   Quickmail Block   

Option 1: Announcements Forum 

  • Every Moodle site contains an announcements forum, which provides a one-way means of communication for the instructor to send out messages to the entire class.
  • This is the most reliable and efficient way to email the class, as anything posted to the announcements forum will be sent as an email to everyone enrolled in the site.
  • Another advantage to this method is that past messages can be viewed by clicking into the forum.
  • We have tips here for ADC's and Librarians on filtering and managing Moodle-generated email (since they will receieve these messages as well).
  • By default you can add only one attachment, but you can increase this limit in the forum settings.

announcements forum

Option 2: Quickmail Block

Look for the Quickmail Block to the right-hand side of your course site (if your screen is small or zoomed in, it will be at the bottom). Click "Compose New Message" and see below for continued instructions. 

quickmail block

The Quickmail Interface

Choose who you'd like to send the message to. You can select "All in Course", add specific individuals, or choose a specific role(s). If you choose specific roles, be aware that you may have students in the "Student Other" and "Student 5C" roles as well as "Student AC"- so be sure to include them!

quickmail interface  

Fill out the subject and message body...
quickmail interface

The “Supported user data fields” is an optional but interesting feature that lets you make your messages more personalized, similar to a Mail Merge. For example, if you add the text “Hi [:firstname:]” to the message body, each student will get an email with their own first name in the message body (ie “Hi Joe”). 
quickmail interface

At the bottom you can add attachments (see below), set an email signature, or choose to send the message at a later time. If you want to get a copy of the email, be sure to select “Yes” for “Receive a send report”.
quickmail interface

Click "Send Message"! Make sure you come back to the main Moodle course page- if you still see the Quickmail screen and your message, it has not sent. Check for a missing field such as the subject. 

A Note About Attachments

  • In Quickmail, the email recipient will receive links to the attached files instead of traditional attachments. All the recipient has to do is click the link to download the attachment.
  • An email with multiple attachments will contain a link to a ZIP file containing all the attachments. Simply click the link to download the zip file, unzip it, and you will have a folder on your computer with all the files.