A personal handoff for every PDF.

Make the PDFs, write the message, and review a recipient preview. Certly attaches the right certificate to each email and relays it through the API to your connected Gmail account.

Delivery uses your Gmail address and its remaining sending quota.

Open Certificate ToolFull visual guide

How do I send certificates by email using Gmail?

No SMTP configuration, no third-party mailer. Certly uses official Google OAuth so emails come from your real Gmail address.

  1. 1

    Generate certificates locally

    Upload your template, import participant data, place fields, and generate all PDFs in your browser.

  2. 2

    Switch to the Email tab

    After generation, navigate to the Send step. Your certificates are ready to attach.

  3. 3

    Connect your Gmail account

    Click "Connect Gmail" and authorize via Google OAuth. No passwords are shared with Certly.

  4. 4

    Compose your email

    Write a subject line and body message. Use merge fields to personalize each email.

  5. 5

    Send in bulk

    Click Send All. Certificates are delivered from your own Gmail account with PDF attachments. Track progress in real time.

How does Gmail OAuth work here?

When you click "Connect Gmail," you authorize directly with Google — not with Certly. The API handles OAuth credentials in your authenticated session. Certly never receives your Google password.

Emails are sent through the Gmail API from your own account. Recipients see your name and email as the sender. We never access your inbox, contacts, or other Gmail data.

Certly requests only the gmail.send scope — the minimum permission needed to send emails. No read access.

Certly vs other bulk email approaches

Comparison of certificate email delivery methods
ApproachSender identityData uploadCost
Certly + Gmail Your Gmail addressRecipient, message, and PDF relayed to GmailFree
SaaS certificate platformsPlatform email or custom domainFull roster uploaded to vendorPer-certificate or subscription
Manual Gmail + attachments Your Gmail addressNone — but hours of manual laborFree (your time is not)

How many certificates can I send in one day?

Email delivery depends on Gmail's daily sending limit. Because messages go through your account, Google's quota applies as it would if you sent them by hand. A free personal Gmail account has a noticeably lower daily allowance than a paid Google Workspace account, so a large batch may need to be split across two days on a personal address.

Google publishes the current figures and adjusts them periodically, so check Google's sending limits documentation rather than trusting a number quoted on a third-party page. Two practical consequences worth planning around:

  • Hitting the limit is not data loss. Your generated PDFs remain in the browser session, so you can resume sending the remainder once the quota resets.
  • Attachment size counts. A heavy template image produces heavy PDFs. Keeping certificates to a couple of megabytes each makes delivery faster and reduces the chance of a bounce.
  • Send a test to yourself first. One message confirms the subject line, body text and attachment name render the way you expect before several hundred people receive them.
  • Download the ZIP if the roster is very large. Distributing through Discord, Slack or your LMS sidesteps email quotas entirely.

If a message fails, the failure is reported per recipient so you can retry only the affected rows rather than resending the whole batch. For the full walkthrough of the send step, see the step-by-step guide.

Questions / Answers

Gmail bulk certificate delivery FAQ

Sending, limits, and privacy

Does generating certificates use my Gmail sending quota?

No. Generation is local. Gmail applies account-based limits only when you send, and those quotas also include your other mail. A generated batch is not a promise of available sending quota.

What does connecting Google share with Certly?

You sign in with Google and grant send-only Gmail access. Certly never receives your Google password. OAuth credentials are handled by the API in the authenticated session.

Can I customize the email subject and body?

Yes. Write the subject and message in the composer. Use placeholders from your imported columns, then preview the result for a recipient.

What happens if sending is interrupted?

The local batch records sending status. Return in the same browser, review sent and failed rows, and retry only what still needs delivery.

Is the certificate attached as PDF or inline?

Each email carries the recipient’s PDF as an attachment, alongside the message you composed.

Ready to send? Certificates + Gmail in minutes.

Open certificate tool

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