How do you greet multiple recipients in an e-mail?

Question

How do you greet multiple recipients in an e-mail?

Assuming they're both male, I just use "Sirs", but it seems a bit informal.

Answer 1

If you don't know the recipients' names, I refer you to the other answers. However, if you do know their names, then I will add that I would actually just write:

Dear John,
Dear Jack,

I have been using this formula for more than a decade. So far, nobody has complained. For me, this approach has quite a few advantages. First of all, it is more personal than simply "Greetings" or "Hi all". Secondly, if one of those people is the main recipient and the other is CC, or if one of them has a higher rank (say, he is the boss of the other), I can reflect that in my address by mentioning him first. Lastly, this formula can be easily adapted to many situations. If some (or all) of the recipients are female I simply write:

Dear John,
Dear Jane,

If I need to make it more formal, I simply write:

Dear Mr. Smith,
Dear Ms. Black,

And I can easily extend it to three or even four people:

Dear Mr. Smith,
Dear Ms. Black,
Dear Mr. Blunt,

Now, when I am addressing more than four people, I often do use something like "Greetings", "Hi everybody", "Dear clients", "Dear colleagues". However, even then I sometimes set the most important recipient apart by writing:

Dear Prof. Black,
Dear colleagues,

or

Dear Mr. President,
Dear Members of the Committee,

Answer 2

If I am addressing a few people who are well known to me, I would generally use:

Dear John, Bill, Jack,

If I am addressing a lot of people, or people who are not familiar to me, I would go with:

Dear All,

Answer 3

It's kind of a carryover from my medievalist hobby, but I really like using

Greetings,

or even

Greetings!

for emails to a group of people. It's also really handy for addressing a single person when you're unsure of that person's gender and/or title.

Answer 4

I rarely begin emails with a salutation. If I do, it is usually just the name - I have never transferred the pointless 'Dear' to emails.

If I wanted to put one in a group email, I suppose I would start with a word like "friends", or "people", or "folks", depending on the context and formality.

Answer 5

If you are working together on a project, then I rather like

Dear team

This can be appropriate even if the recipients include people from both your company and the client. It's a subtle reminder that you are all working towards a common goal.

More generally, I'd just use

Dear all,

or just

All,

Answer 6

"Sirs" is just completely wrong. If you are addressing more than one man, it would be "Gentlemen".

Answer 7

Email is still sufficiently young that formal conventions have not emerged. I find it useful to imagine myself in the mind of the recipient and ask what information I need to give them in the greeting.

If the email is really to be sent with equal priority to a number of recipients and they regard themselves as part of a group (fellow developers for example), then I would use

Dear All,

If, actually, the email is a mailshot to a number of individuals who don't know each other, then its an individual email.

Dear Sir,

or possibly

Dear Sir (or Madam),

Here, I prefer to use the convention that Sir is neuter.

And lastly, if an email is really to a single individual, but with a few more individuals copied in (such as a question to an individual developer, but where I want the email trail to be visible to the group), then I would use

Dear Bob (Alice, Charlie, Dilbert)

The last one is not a convention I have seen elsewhere, but I find it works for me.

Answer 8

I have been using, "Hello to all". It seems to work well for both male and female recipients and is formal enough to use in a business setting.

Answer 9

You can also use gents to refer to many recipients.