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An email list is a saved audience: the people a campaign goes to. This page covers what a list does once email starts moving. For building one, criterion by criterion, see Lists & Segments. Built for organisations sending to part of their base rather than all of it. Replaces pasting addresses into a mail client. Lists live at Administration → Communication → Lists & Segments (/email-lists). Creating, editing and deleting a list needs HR_TENANT or COMMUNICATION_TENANT. Adding or removing an individual person from a manual list needs ADMIN_TENANT.

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Two kinds, one difference that matters for email

An automated list is a set of criteria. A manual list is a fixed set of people. For email the difference is timing. An automated list is evaluated again at the moment the campaign is sent, not when you drafted it, so anyone who became eligible in between is included and anyone who no longer qualifies is dropped. A manual list sends to the rows in it, less two subtractions: anyone who is not subscribed, and anyone whose member account has since been merged away or deleted. Nothing is ever added to it. That makes automated lists the right choice for anything recurring (“members who have not paid”) and manual lists the right choice for anything deliberate (“the twelve people going to the retreat”).

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Subscribed is not the same as in the list

Every member and contact carries a subscription state for email. A list shows both numbers: the total and how many of those are Subscribed. Campaigns only reach subscribed people. A list of 900 with 620 subscribed sends to 620. The count shown next to From a list when you pick a newsletter audience is the subscribed count, which is why it is often lower than the list total you were expecting. Unsubscribing is the member’s decision and lists do not override it. Removing someone from a list does not unsubscribe them, and unsubscribing does not remove them from any list: the two are independent.
System emails ignore lists entirely. A renewal reminder goes to the member whose fee is expiring, whether or not they are in any list and whether or not they have unsubscribed from campaigns. Unsubscribing stops marketing, not the messages about someone’s own membership. See System emails.

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Where a list gets used

1

As a newsletter audience

In the newsletter composer, choose From a list and pick it. This is the main use. See Newsletter.
2

As an import target

A data import can add everyone in the file to a manual list as it runs, which is the fastest way to turn a spreadsheet into an audience. Only manual lists can be picked: an automated list decides its own membership, so Orgo refuses the import rather than silently ignoring it. See Importing data.
3

As the output of a question

Ask Orgo can propose a list from a plain-language question and save it as a real list you can then send to. See Insights.

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Adding people to a manual list

Three ways in: Add searches members and contacts by name, Add CSV takes a file of addresses, and an import can populate the list as part of a larger job. Adding someone who is already in the list is safe. The existing entry is kept and the row is reported as skipped, rather than failing. This matters more than it sounds: the add dialog only knows about the page of members it has loaded, so on a long list you will regularly try to add someone twice without realising. Removing someone deletes their place in the list and nothing else. Their profile, history and subscription state are untouched.

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Local centre boundaries

If a newsletter belongs to a local centre, that centre’s boundary is applied on top of the list. A list containing people from three centres, used by one centre’s newsletter, reaches only that centre’s people. A list cannot be used to reach past a boundary that the sender does not have.

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Troubleshooting

Open the list and compare Total with Subscribed. The gap is everyone without an explicit opt-in: people who unsubscribed, and people who never made a choice. On an automated list the subscription chips on the recipients table show exactly who was skipped. A manual list has no such chips, so use the email log to see who actually received the campaign, or open the individual records.
Check the list’s member status setting. Automated lists default to active members only, so lapsed members drop out of them silently. That one setting can still be changed after the list is created.
You cannot: the type is fixed when the list is created. Create a new automated list with the criteria you want and retire the old one.
Check Email logs for what they actually received. If it is a system email (renewal, invoice, event confirmation) that is expected: unsubscribing only stops campaigns.