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Asked: 2026-05-20T07:51:08+00:00

I’m improving PHP mailing list code that uses mail() in a loop while iterating

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I’m improving PHP mailing list code that uses mail() in a loop while iterating through all subscribers. The script used to display a “Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded” error which I solved by adding set_time_limit(0);.

Now there’s no error but it took about seven minutes to send 100 messages. What are my options?

Will sending just a single message with all subscribers in BCC help or is it the same “behind the scenes”?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Sending to all as BCC will be a lot faster. The code will execute faster and mail() will be executed only once.

    This is the quick fix, but as mentioned, a large BCC list is a safe road to the spam folder. However, using mail() is a sure destination to spam too.

    If you want to actually improve it, use PHPMailer from SourceForge and send via SMTP (less spam hits) using cron in batches of X emails once.

    The PHP docs state:

    Note:
    It is worth noting that the mail() function is not suitable for larger volumes of email in a loop. This function opens and closes an SMTP socket for each email, which is not very efficient.

    For sending large amounts of email, see the » PEAR::Mail, and » PEAR::Mail_Queue packages.

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