Dada Mail

Dada Mail is a supported, contemporary, completely free and open source web-based software project that provides a general purpose mailing list manager, which can be easily deployed on any GNU/Linux server machine and used inside your organization to send mass emails and provide announcements to your customers, co-workers or employees.

Features at a glance

Dada Mail is targeted to be used by small and medium-sized businesses, such as non-profit organizations and personal websites. Key features a web-based system, mass-mailing, supports an unlimited number of mailing lists, it's customizable, sharing, profiles, plugins, archives list messages, and supports announce-only and group lists.

It’s extensible through plugins

Another interesting features is the ability to be extensible, through plugins, such as Mailing Monitor, Bounce Handler, Scheduled Mailings, Change the Program Root Password, Change Your List Short Name, Default Mass Mailing Messages, Password Protect Directories, Log Viewer, Screen Cache, Multiple Subscribe, and Archive Blog Index.

Do It Yourself mailing list

The Dada Mail project is well known for being extremely flexible, allowing the user to install it on his/her own web hosting account, giving them complete control over the mailing lists. It’s a DIY (Do It Yourself) mailing list manager.

Under the hood and supported OSes

The program is written in the Perl and JavaScript programming languages. Being designed as a web-based application, it can be used via a supported and actively maintained web browser that runs on top of any mainstream operating system, including GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, BSD, Mac OS X and Solaris.

Supported platforms and availability

The application can be downloaded from Softoware or via its official homepage as a universal tarball, which includes all the necessary files to deploy Dada Mail on a supported web server, such as Apache. Both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms are supported at this time.

What is new in this release:

• Dada Mail Manual revision
• Features:
• Recurring Scheduled Mass Mailing Enhancements
• Send a Webpage: Send a Cropped Webpage
• Send a Webpage: PlainText version via URL
• Tracker Plugin: Tracking the User Agent
• Bounce Handler Plugin: Optimizations
• Bugfixes:
• List Names set the same as List Email sometimes interpreted as an email address in From:, To: headers

What is new in version 9.2.0:

• Dada Mail Manual revision
• Features:
• Recurring Scheduled Mass Mailing Enhancements
• Send a Webpage: Send a Cropped Webpage
• Send a Webpage: PlainText version via URL
• Tracker Plugin: Tracking the User Agent
• Bounce Handler Plugin: Optimizations
• Bugfixes:
• List Names set the same as List Email sometimes interpreted as an email address in From:, To: headers

What is new in version 9.1.2:

• Dada Mail Manual revision
• Features:
• Recurring Scheduled Mass Mailing Enhancements
• Send a Webpage: Send a Cropped Webpage
• Send a Webpage: PlainText version via URL
• Tracker Plugin: Tracking the User Agent
• Bounce Handler Plugin: Optimizations
• Bugfixes:
• List Names set the same as List Email sometimes interpreted as an email address in From:, To: headers

What is new in version 9.0.1:

• Dada Mail Manual revision
• Features:
• Recurring Scheduled Mass Mailing Enhancements
• Send a Webpage: Send a Cropped Webpage
• Send a Webpage: PlainText version via URL
• Tracker Plugin: Tracking the User Agent
• Bounce Handler Plugin: Optimizations
• Bugfixes:
• List Names set the same as List Email sometimes interpreted as an email address in From:, To: headers

What is new in version 8.3.0:

• Features:
• Magic User Templates Enhancements
• Send a Webpage: grab the Subject of a message, from the Title of the Webpage
• Bugfixes:
• Archived message file attachments cannot always be downloaded
• Installer: incorrect javasript filename being called
• List Invitations: Multiple invites are allowed to be sent to the same address
• Changes:
• jQuery and jQuery Libraries updated

What is new in version 8.1.0:

• Magic User Templates (Experimental):
• Magic Templates allow you to simply set a URL to fetch a webpage, which will then be utilized as your global user template. Various options to adjust the output of your template are available, all of which are available in the included Dada Mail Installer's Advanced Configuration: http://dadamailproject.com/d/install_dada_mail-advanced_configuration.pod.html#Configure-Global-Template-Options

What is new in version 8.0.2:

• Bugfixes:
• Amazon SES:
• Recently, Amazon SES seems to have slightly changed the way it has been returning results to its API calls, specifically when finding your daily email sending quotas. This change has caused problems with Dada Mail's method of setting its auto-batching capabilities. (fixed)
• https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/491
• Installer:
• Advanced Options to set the Confirmation Token expiration date were not being written to the global configuration. (fixed)
• https://github.com/justingit/dada-mail/issues/492

What is new in version 7.4.0 / 8.0.0 Alpha 1:

• Digest Messages:
• Digest Messages are messages that are created by taking the content of many messages sent in a timespan, and putting them into a single message to then send out. See the feature overview of Digests here: http://dadamailproject.com/d/features-digest.pod.html
• Subscribers can now have the option of having individual messages delivered, having a digest message delivered on a scheduled, or having messages that would have been delivered to them held from being delivered.
• Digest Messages that are sent out (Subject, PlainText version and HTML version) can be fully customized.
• Way back in the day, Dada Mail had Digest support - it totally stunk. This new support totally doesn't. We're really happy to finally roll out a replacement that we're proud of.
• Schedules:
• With Schedules, any draft message you create can now be scheduled to be sent at a later time right from within the Send a Message, or Send a Webpage screens.
• To create a new Schedule, first go to the Send a Message, or Send a Webpage screen. Write your message! Then, click the, "Schedule..." button. Tick, "Activate" and set the time in the future you would like your message to go out. Click, "Create Schedule" and you're done!
• Once a message has been scheduled, you may edit the message (and even reuse the schedule, if you would like!). In the list control panel, Go to: Mass Mailing - Drafts/Stationary/Schedules. Click the Schedules tab to view all your schedules.
• Important: make sure the Mailing Monitor's cronjob is also set up. (It should already be to make sure mass mailings go smoothly.)
• Dada Mail has had support for scheduled mailings since the inception of the Beatitude Plugin. This plugin has been marked as Deprecated, and we've taken one giant step in integrating scheduling of mass mailings into the core of Dada Mail with this release. We'll still ship with the Beatitude plugin, but (fair warning!) it's days are numbered. We'd like to integrate some more of its advanced features (recurring schedules), before we totally abandon ship on the plugin.

What is new in version 6.8.1:

• This is a bugfix release.

What is new in version 6.8.0:

• Features:
• Rich Text Editors and Web-Based File Browsers
• CKEditor Upgraded to v4.3, TinyMCE Upgraded to v4.0.11, FCKeditor retired
• CKEditor: Template Tag Dropdown Menu
• Core5 Labs FileManager Support
• Bridge 6.8.0
• Moderators and Authorized Senders
• On Behalf Of (p.p. Mode)
• Message Received Notification Message
• Amazon SES Auto-Adjust Batch Sending Rates
• Mass Mailing Logs: save-able and viewable in the Log Viewer plugin
• Highlighting in the list control panel's menu
• Changes:
• Clickthrough Tracking: URLs in image maps tracked
• Bugfixes:
• Profile Fields, "Name" validation not validated for case-ness

What is new in version 6.7.1:

• Bugfixes:
• "Unsubscriptions" option" " If an unsubscription is successful, redirect to this URL: " does not work
• Dada permits illegal email addresses to be added like "user@myname. com"
• ">>" characters in the button label: "Subscribe Checked Subscribers >>" cause mod_security to trigger on form submission

What is new in version 6.7.0:

• Features:
• Mass Mailing: Save as Draft
• Mass Mailing: File Attachments
• Installer
• CAPTCHA Options
• jQuery Dada Mail Subscription plugin
• Changes:
• Send Mass Mailing Buttons: Always on Top
• Subscription Requests Approving/Denying Options
• Expanded RESTful API

What is new in version 6.6.0:

• This version focuses on three main features: sending error detection and reporting, a redesigned membership admin screen, and a new RESTful API for subscriptions.

What is new in version 6.5.2:

• This version aims to fix a definite problem when sending mass mailings: There seemed to be a large pause between submitting a mass mailing and when the mass mailing actually starts up fully, to get sent.

What is new in version 6.3.0:

• More Security Safeguards in the Subscription Confirmation Process
• Keep your subscribers safe and happy with the new confirmation system
• Tracker: now track email addresses for Opens/Clickthroughs!
• Gain more insight on how well your campaigns are working
• Amazon SES Third Party Email Service: setup now vastly simplified!
• Turbo charge your mass mailing speed rates and size
• Extended Gravatar Support
• Add more personal touches to your archives
• Geo IP databases Updated
• Keep your message analytics data current
• Cascading Stylesheet Block to Inline Converter (experimental)
• Ensure that your HTML message formatting looks the best in as many places as possible

What is new in version 6.2.2:

• This version fixes bugs found in the 6.2.1 version of Dada Mail.
• It's a suggested upgrade for anyone running 6.2.1 or lower.

What is new in version 6.2.0:

• This version features more work on detecting automated link fetching, in regards to sub/unsub confirmation links.
• This automated link fetching can change the status of a subscription, without the subscriber's actual input or knowledge.
• A simple system is in place to detect if subscription requests and confirmations are coming from differing IP addresses, and a simple safeguard has been put in place to halt the automated system from changing the status of the subscriber.

What is new in version 6.1.1:

• This version includes important security enhancements to the link confirmation system, which is used for confirming subscriptions and unsubscriptions to mailings lists.
• A totally random token/session system was adopted, replacing the ageing two-way string hash system (symmetric) - the latter having theoretically a very weak defense over any real attempt at cracking it.
• Upgrading is recommended.

What is new in version 6.0.0:

• This version features better email analytics, allowing you to discover information by campaign and IP address, as well as more interactive charts and graphs.
• There's better handling of bounced messages, with new, clearer rules; a complete migration from Protototype to jQuery; a more sophisticated Web-based installer that can move over commonly set global configurations from previous installations; and the ability to easily create discussion mailing lists using email forwarding instead of using a POP3 address, making performance and email delivery of discussion lists much quicker.

What is new in version 5.2.1 / 6.0.0 Beta 1:

• This major release features a more intelligent installer, better message analytics (including breakdown of subscriber events (link clicks, opens, bounces, etc.) by country, State, City, and IP address), and an updated UI powered by jQuery.

What is new in version 5.2.1:

• This version primarily contains fixes for problems with the bundled KCFinder's ability to browser and upload files.

What is new in version 5.2.0:

• This version focuses on WYSIWYG editors, which allow you to author your HTML email messages in rich text from within the List Control Panel.
• It comes bundled with three different WYSIWYG editors: CKEditor, Tiny MCE, and FCKeditor. KCfinder, an image/file browser/uploader, is also bundled.
• Dragging and dropping images to be used in your email messages is also supported.
• All these utilities can be installed easily using the included Dada Mail Installer.

What is new in version 5.1.0:

• This version features three new plugins: a plugin to change a Mailing List's short name, a plugin to help manage Apache-style password protected directories, and a plugin to set default text/copy when sending out mass mailings.
• It also has major enhancements to Dada Mail's Profiles, giving you the ability to enable/disable major features of Profiles to suite your taste.
• Auto-Adjusting sending speeds for Amazon SES mail sending have been added.
• Finally, Dada Mail's invitation feature now allows you to see who you've already invited, and gives you a choice to not re-invite these addresses.

What is new in version 5.0.3:

• This version contains primarily bugfixes found in the v5.0.2 release of Dada Mail.
• Many of the issues fixed deal with Discussion Mailing Lists.

What is new in version 5.0.2:

• This version primarily contains fixes for bugs found in 5.0.1.

What is new in version 5.0.0:

• This version features a redesigned and improved layout/design and a completely redesigned UI for the Membership: View screen of Dada Mail, allowing you to more easily manage your complete mailing list.

What is new in version 5.0.0 RC3:

• This is a continued polishing of Dada Mail to get ready for the imminent stable release.

What is new in version 5.0.0 Beta 1:

• This version features a complete redesign of the UI to bring it up to date and make it easier and more enjoyable to use.

What is new in version 4.8.4:

• This version fixed a number of issues, including a big memory leak that happened whenever you mass mail an HTML email message, regardless of how it was first created.
• This memory leak could grow from many 100s of megabytes to gigabytes of memory within a few thousand messages, potentially kill off the sending process, and more likely than not, slow down mass mailing by over 10%.

What is new in version 4.8.3:

• This version fixed a number of issues, including a problem with stripping Cc: and Bcc: headers from messages in discussion mailing lists.

What is new in version 4.8.0:

• This version has around two dozen bug fixes.
• Email messages dealing with discussion lists and moderation can now be edited on a per-list basis within the list control panel of the Dada Bridge Plugin.

What is new in version 4.6.0:

• Features 4.6.0:
• Amazon SES Mail Sending Support
• See Also:
• Forward to a Friend
• More Information:
• Unsubscribe Tag/Link Flexibility:
• New Plugin: Mailing Monitor
• See Also:
• Install Plugins/Extensions with the Dada Mail Installer
• See Also
• Changes 4.6.0:
• Better-Written Mailing List Message Templates
• Social Bookmarking Links Updated
• GeoIP data updated
• Bug Fixes 4.6.0:
• POP3 Login Paramaters not getting passed correctly?

What is new in version 4.6.0 Alpha 2:

• This version features support for sending messages with Amazon SES, as well as support for installing included plugins and extensions with the Dada Mail installer.

What is new in version 4.5.2:

• Features:
• New Plugin! Tracker
• More Information
• Changes:
• clickthrough_tracker.cgi plugin removed
• Subscriber and # Mailing Lists Quotas changes
• Bug Fixes:
• Bounce Handler: link to view individual email address's bounce information goes to screen w/server error
• Link to Add Authorized Senders not available if they're aren't any, yet
• Advanced Sending Preferences: Unable to change three settings
• Dadaized FormMail.pl - syntax errors?

What is new in version 4.5.0:

• A new plugin called Tracker was added.
• Tracker helps you understand what happens after you've sent a mass mailing out, allowing you to view trends in mass mailing campaign opens, clickthroughs, and bounces, even while the mailing is being sent out.
• Charts, visual graphs, and .csv exports of the data collected are available.

What is new in version 4.4.3:

• Closed-Loop Opt-In Subscription Not Enforced by Default, Anymore
• Dada Bridge: Reply and Reply-All Behavior
• View List: "Open List in New Window" button renamed to, "Download List"
• View List: Email Your List Button is Gone
• Log View: Download the Raw Log
• Installer: Old Screen Cache Files Removed
• Template System: initial "tmpl_set support", template wrapping
• AJAX: internal changes
• Mailing Monitor: AJAX
• Subscription/Unsubscription Custom URL Redirect API Change
• Web Services Examples
• Test Mass Mailings, Mail Merging
• blank "Verify" screen when adding/removing addresses in the list control panel
• Email Address submitted with mixed cases can break the unsubscription mechanism
• Sending Test Messages does not pick up on any profile fields of the test recipients email address
• Beatitude: Yearly repeating schedules repeat in less than a year
• Multiple use of parameters in redirect to URL
• Discussion List Reply/Reply-All behaviour is broken

What is new in version 4.4.2:

• Bug Fixes:
• Saving archive options -> Can't locate object method "save_w_meta"
• "Download List (CSV)" doesn't work
• "what_is_dada_mail" screen returns back Server Error
• DADA::MailingList::Subscribers::add_subscriber() "-dupe_check" option not documented, tested
• Duplicate email addresses can be subscribed in list control panel in last step -
• "Delete List" screen will show Server Error, once you delete a list
• Screen after you fill out the form to create a new list is completely blank
• Beatitude/List Backup/Restore: Attempting to restore a blank scheduled mailing will result in an error
• Beatitude: Schedules backed up at each schedule run
• Restore Lists: Popup menus can have the wrong information
• redirect tags not looked for validity in the URL
• "I know these tables already exist." label doesn't toggle checkbox in installer
• grammar error in Mailing List Options screen s/subscription/unsubscription/

What is new in version 4.4.1:

• Changes:
• Dada Bridge SpamAssassin 3 Support Added
• Bug Fixes:
• Subscriber Search screen does not ever show the, "Subscription Requests" link/button
• Can't locate object method "cache_dir" via package "self" - error
• signing into a single list (via f=sign_in) produces an error.
• Editing an Archive screen sometimes returns back a, "Method Not Allowed" error

What is new in version 4.4.0:

• Changes 4.4.0:
• Closed-Loop Opt-In Subscription Not Enforced by Default, Anymore
• Code Cleanup
• Mass Mailing: Better Error Reporting
• Dada Bridge: Reply and Reply-All Behavior
• View List: "Open List in New Window" button renamed to, "Download List"
• View List: Email Your List Button is Gone
• Log View: Download the Raw Log
• Installer: Old Screen Cache Files Removed
• Template System: initial "tmpl_set support", template wrapping
• AJAX: internal changes
• Mailing Monitor: AJAX
• Subscription/Unsubscription Custom URL Redirect API Change
• Web Services Examples
• Test Mass Mailings, Mail Merging
• Bug Fixes 4.4.0:
• blank "Verify" screen when adding/removing addresses in the list control panel
• Email Address submitted with mixed cases can break the unsubscription mechanism
• Sending Test Messages does not pick up on any profile fields of the test recipients email address
• Beatitude: Yearly repeating schedules repeat in less than a year
• Multiple use of parameters in redirect to URL
• Discussion List Reply/Reply-All behaviour is broken

What is new in version 4.3.2:

• This version includes minor bugfixes and new documentation on upgrading from a Simple Scripts installation.

What is new in version 4.3.0:

• This version presents a more tightly integrated and streamlined system to allow people to manage a mailing list and follow best practices, making running the Closed-Loop Opt In mailing list a whole lot easier.

What is new in version 4.2.1:

• This version includes minor bugfixes.

What is new in version 4.2.0:

• Dada Mail Installer:
• Installation Terminology Changes
• Setup Info Screen:
• $ADMIN_MENU Changes
• MySQL 4-specific schema REMOVED
• Bug Fixes:
• Profile Email Addresses aren't normalized for case sensitivity
• PlainText Backend - subscribed addresses with a, ' (single quote) will disrupt subscriptions

What is new in version 4.1.0:

• Changes:
• Screen Cache Working Again, Enabled by Default
• Enabled by Default
• Changes to the $ADMIN_MENU
• More information:
• Optimizations in Mass Mailing Speeds
• Social Bookmarking/Link Sharing Buttons for archive screens Enabled by Default
• Bug Fixes:
• Missing closing, "" HTML tag in profile_update_email_confirm.tmpl
• Profile email updates cannot happen on closed lists
• Unpaired divs in list_page_screen.tmpl
• Can't view archived attachments
• Slashes in pin for subscribe/unsubsribe links invaidates pin
• "Send Subscribers to List Owner" function not very friendly to use

What is new in version 4.0.3:

• Unicode/UTF-8 Work
• SQL table schema changes!
• See Also:
• Changes to Default List Settings
• Activate Black List
• Print List-Specific Headers option Removed
• Send Unsubscription Confirmation Emails (Closed-Loop Opt-Out) - disabled by default
• Subscription and Unsubscription links now include an Email Address
• Unsubscription Links Now Mandatory for Mass Mailing Messages
• Bug Fixes:
• Send newest archived message may have outdated header information
• pop3 username/password not saved when "Save, Then Test..." button pressed in Sending Preferences
• Beatitude: Months are listed out of order
• profile field names can contain more than just ascii letters, numbers and underscores
• list short names can contain more than just ascii letters, numbers and underscores
• Beatitude: Scheduled List Not in Any Useable Order?
• Dada Bridge: Spam Assassin Level Picker isn't available
• Sending Preferences don't correctly state if you can use Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for POP-before-SMTP
• Double Subscriptions when using List Invitation
• Archived messages not templated out in publicly displayed archives
• Link to edit subscriber information broken when using the search
• Unsubsciption Notice to List Owner doesn't have subscriber (profile) fields
• Disabled Menu items return server error when using the, "Classic" session type

What is new in version 3.0.1:

• This release fixes over 20 bugs since the 3.0.0 release, and is meant to be as easy to upgrade from 3.0.0 as possible.

What is new in version 3.0.1 Beta 1:

• This release features over 20 bugfixes.

Requirements:

• Perl