Bulk email/SMS sends and deleting or merging contacts safely
How to run a one-time bulk email or SMS send, and how to delete or merge contacts in bulk without losing data you needed — including the undo window.
These are the highest-stakes bulk actions in the platform. A bulk send reaches real people the instant it fires, and a bulk delete or merge changes contact records permanently or near-permanently. Both deserve more care than tagging or exporting.
Bulk email and SMS sends
A bulk send is a one-time message to a selected group of contacts — different from a campaign (scheduled, often recurring) or a workflow (triggered, ongoing). Use it for a single announcement, a manual re-engagement push, or anything that doesn't need to repeat.
- Select your contacts, ideally from a smart list built for this exact purpose (see Practical smart list recipes).
- Choose Bulk Actions > Email or Bulk Actions > SMS.
- Write or select the message. For email, the builder lets you compose from a blank message, start from a template, or reuse an existing one.
- Set pacing if you're sending to a large list — batch size and interval — so the send spreads out instead of firing all at once (see Bulk actions overview for how pacing works).
- Send yourself a test message first. Almost every bulk-send tool supports this, and it's the only reliable way to catch a broken merge field, a wrong link, or a formatting issue before it reaches your whole list.
- Confirm the send.
Warning: There is no unsend for a delivered email or text. Once a batch goes out, it's out. Treat the test-send step as mandatory, not optional, for anything going to more than a handful of people.
Checking results
Bulk sends report their performance the same place other bulk actions do — Contacts > Bulk Actions, with Show Stats giving you opens, clicks, and bounces for email, or delivery status for SMS. Use this to catch problems early: a bounce rate that's much higher than normal on a bulk send usually means a list-quality issue worth investigating before the next one.
Deleting contacts in bulk
Bulk delete removes contact records permanently — but not instantly-permanently.
- Select the contacts to delete.
- Choose Bulk Actions > Delete.
- Confirm. You'll typically be shown a count of how many contacts are about to be deleted — read it before confirming, especially if you're working from an unfiltered list rather than a smart list.
The undo window
Deleted contacts (and their associated data — notes, tasks, conversation history) can usually be restored for a limited period, roughly 60 days, from the Bulk Actions history:
- Go to Contacts > Bulk Actions.
- Find the delete job in the history.
- Choose the restore option to bring the contacts — and their data — back.
After that window closes, the deletion becomes permanent and cannot be reversed. Treat the undo window as a safety net for mistakes, not as license to delete casually — restoring thousands of contacts because a filter was wrong is a stressful way to spend an afternoon even when it works.
Tip: Before a large bulk delete, export the selection first (see Bulk add to workflow, add/remove tags, and export). It's a second, independent backup outside the undo window, in case you need the data after 60 days.
Merging duplicate contacts
Duplicates split a person's history across multiple records — half their messages on one contact, half on another — which makes both records less useful. Merging combines them into one.
- Search for the contacts you believe are duplicates, or use a duplicate-detection tool if your account has one to find matches by email, phone, or name automatically.
- Select the contacts to merge — up to 10 at a time.
- Choose More > Merge.
- Pick the master record — this is the contact whose primary details (and record ID) survive the merge. You can independently choose which email or phone becomes the primary one on the merged record, even if it comes from a different contact in the group.
- Confirm. Notes, tasks, conversation history, and tags from all selected contacts combine onto the single surviving record.
The merge contacts screen with a master record selected and secondary contacts listed
Warning: Merging is not reversible the way a delete is. Once contacts are combined, there's no "split" action to undo it. If you're not confident which contacts are true duplicates (rather than, say, a parent and child at the same address with different emails), leave them separate rather than guessing.
Choosing between delete and merge
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| Contact is genuinely gone (bad data, test entry, opted out permanently and requested removal) | Delete |
| Same real person exists as two or more records | Merge |
| You're not sure if two contacts are the same person | Investigate first — don't merge or delete on a guess |
What "done" looks like
Before any bulk send, delete, or merge touching more than a handful of contacts: you've selected from a smart list you can describe in one sentence, you've exported or otherwise backed up the affected records, and — for a send — you've sent yourself a test message. After the action, you've checked the Bulk Actions stats to confirm the count and outcome matched what you expected.
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Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to restore accidentally deleted contacts?
Roughly 60 days from the Bulk Actions history, after which the deletion becomes permanent.
Can I merge more than 10 contacts at once?
No — merges are capped at 10 contacts per operation. For a larger cluster of duplicates, merge them in batches.
Does a bulk send skip contacts with DND enabled automatically?
Yes, for the channel they've opted out of. You don't need to manually exclude DND contacts from your selection — the send will skip them on that channel regardless.