I have been successfully using phpList for a few years to send newsletters and emails for our local scouts group. It has proved very useful. It is common to receive reply’s to campaigns that we send. I have email addresses set up for the various sections of our group, I.e cubs@123.com and scouts@123.com. Each section leader is set up as an admin within phpList. When they log in to phpList and send a campaign the from line is populated with their email address, for example cubs@123.com
I have phpList set up to use gmail to send and process bounces.
When a campaign is sent, the reply to address is always set to the gmail address, despite the phpList from line being set to the cubs@123.com address.
Is it possible to change this so that the cubs@123.com or scouts@123.com email addresses are set to the reply to address?
It is probably gmail that is setting the reply-to address, see How To Use Google's SMTP Server | DigitalOcean
Why cannot you send emails (and deal with bounces) through your own domain?
I host my own email server (zimbra) and I did have phplist set up to use it. It seemed to work well, but I had several phplist subscribers who reported that they didn’t get emails from the list. phpList was sending them out, but no bounce was received. When I changed to use gmail users did get emails, so it seemed to solve my problem.
I think your are right about gmail setting the reply address. I don’t think I will be able to achieve my goal if I continue to use it.
I think the problem with my own email server is that my ISP doesn’t allow me to set a corresponding PTR record for my server. I believe some hosts require the PTR to match the server, otherwise messages are rejected, sometimes without a bounce.
Ok, well why not just use phpList.com - it’s either free of $1 a month for that kinds of volume. Self-hosting for 400 mails a month is really a lot of work, it seems to me. If you sign up at phpList.com/register I can help you though the support system there too
Sounds like a good option. Is the hosted option the same as the none hosted version? At the moment we have 8 admins and about 6 lists. Would it be possible to have a reply’s to phpList emails go to my email server where I have distribution lists set up?
You mean 8 sub-admin accounts or 8 people simply using the same login?
I am not sure I understand the question exactly, but basically the features of phpList.com are the same as the .org version, however, not all plugins are on .com and some things are simplified, but it’s essentially the same yes.
