A mailing list is one address, such as team@example.com, that sends each message to every subscriber. cPanel uses GNU Mailman for this. It is ideal for a club, a team or a small announcement list where members reply to each other. For large marketing newsletters, a dedicated email marketing service is a better fit.
Before you start
- Check that Mailing Lists appears under cPanel → Email. If it does not, the feature is not enabled on your plan.
- Have your member list ready as plain email addresses, one per line.
- Only add people who agreed to receive the messages. Lists with many complaints damage the server's reputation and can be suspended.
Create the list
- Open cPanel → Email → Mailing Lists.
- Enter the List Name, for example
team, and choose the domain. The address will beteam@example.com. - Set a strong Password. This is the list administrator password for the Mailman interface.
- Choose Access Type:
- Public: anyone can find the list and ask to join.
- Private: subscriptions need administrator approval and archives are private. Recommended for most lists.
- Click Add.
Add members
- In the list table, click Manage next to the list. The Mailman admin page opens and logs you in.
- Go to Membership Management → Mass Subscription.
- Paste the addresses, one per line.
- Choose Subscribe (adds them directly) or Invite (they must confirm, which is better for consent).
- Set Send welcome messages as you prefer and click Submit Your Changes.
Announcement list or discussion list
| Type | Settings in Mailman |
|---|---|
| Discussion (everyone can post) | Privacy options → Sender filters: members' posts unmoderated; Non-member filters: hold or reject. |
| Announcement (only you post) | Membership Management: set the moderate flag for all members; Privacy options → Sender filters: member_moderation_action = Reject. |
Under General Options → reply_goes_to_list choose whether replies go to the list or only to the sender.
Moderate held messages
Messages from non-members or moderated members wait in Pending moderator requests. Approve, reject or discard them there. Mailman also emails the list owner a daily summary.
Warning: Shared hosting has hourly sending limits per domain. A list with many hundreds of members may hit them and messages will be queued or deferred. For large lists, contact support or use a newsletter service.
Change password or delete the list
On the cPanel Mailing Lists page use Change Password, Delegation (let another cPanel user manage the list) or Delete. Deleting removes the members and archives.
Troubleshooting
- Members do not receive posts: check the post is not waiting for moderation, then look it up in Track Delivery.
- Posts land in spam: make sure SPF, DKIM and DMARC are valid. See Email Deliverability.
- DMARC rejections from Gmail or Yahoo senders: in Mailman Privacy options set dmarc_moderation_action to Munge From.