In Mailchimp, the means with which an unsubscribed subscriber may be resubscribed vary depending on various factors. There is no single solution to resubscribe an unsubscribed person in your list.
Here are the basics around the re-subscription process:
If a subscriber unsubscribes themselves, how do they resubscribe?
If a person unsubscribed by clicking an unsubscribe link in one of your campaigns then you, as the account holder (also called user) won’t be able to resubscribe the person. The subscriber themselves will need to manually subscribe to your list.
If the Mailchimp user unsubscribes a subscriber can the user resubscribe the person?
Yes, should a subscriber be manually unsubscribed by the Mailchimp account holder then the account holder is able to resubscribe the person.
The following instructions describe how to resubscribe a subscriber that you’ve unsubscribed:
- Login to Mailchimp.
- Click Lists then your list name.
- Just above the Email Address column click All Subscribers then Unsubscribed from the drop-down.
- Click checkbox next to the names of the people you want to resubscribe.
- Click Resubscribe.
Note that the message you can only change emails you manually unsubscribed will appear if you try to select people that you can’t resubscribe in the instructions above.
If I create a suppression list can I then change the subscribers to be subscribed?
If you import people as unsubscribed into your list then you are able to change the status of the person from unsubscribed to subscribed.
Contact me if you’re looking for Mailchimp training.
How does a unsubscribed person manually subscribe?
Hi Kimberley, Contacts that have unsubscribed may resubscribe by submitting their details through a Mailchimp hosted signup form.
and how do they get the mailchimp signup form
See instructions at https://organicweb.com.au/mailchimp-signup-form/
Hi Gary,
I (as the user) deleted (including the personal data) subscribers from the list after they received all the emails from my campaign and then resubscribed them. My goal was to resend all the emails from my campaign to them but that seems not be possible. It looks like MailChimp ‘remembers’ some data of the deleted subscribers that prevents resending the emails. Is there a way to manage this?
Regards, Edwin
Hi Edwin,
You’ll be able to add the contacts to a new list but unfortunately the list from which they were deleted 🙁
Hello. There’s one problem that I can’t solve.
I’m trying to import my contacts via CSV, but when I select “Non-Subscribed” from “Status of imported contacts”, the contacts list is empty, yet if I select “Import history” I see that the import is completed and there are no error messages.
It is because the update is slow or I made a mistake somewhere?
Walter that is exactly what happened to me. I wan’ted to be honest. These were contact names that we gathered at a tradeshow that were in communication with us and expected to receive information. So, I deleted them – to add them as subscribed and NOW Mailchimp won’t allow me to add them at all??
Not sure the best way to do this?
Same here. I’m just learning to use Mailchimp and I deleted people from a contact list, then tried to import a large number of contacts which contained the same ones I deleted and Mailchimp won’t import those. There has to be a way to add these back.
Why are my emails being “cleaned” when they are working email addresses outside of mailchimp? How can they be resubscribed to receive my updates?
Hi Sarah, please see https://organicweb.com.au/marketing/mailchimp-email-marketing-status/ as this should answer your question. Essentially Mailchimp marks an email address as “Cleaned” if the contacts server reports to Mailchimp the email address doesn’t exist (or if there are other issues with the email address).
The method issues at https://organicweb.com.au/marketing/resubscribe-unsubscribed-mailchimp/ may help to resubscribe the contact.
I deleted 200 addresses because I wanted to reload them easyli in to a new tag. Now I had to realize that I can not reload addresses that were PERMANENTLY DELETE. Is there a hint how to get this reload this 200 adresses?
This should work: https://organicweb.com.au/marketing/resubscribe-unsubscribed-mailchimp/
Hi Gary, we use the Mailchimp plugin at our website (WordPress), because of a mistake the suscribe “click box” at the checout process, was hidden, so all the new contacts were saved ad “unsuscribed” i already made the resubcribe process, it shows the message “100 members queued to be resuscribed” but it didn’t work and don’t change it for the new status. What can be wrong?
Hi Jorge, it’s difficult to understand what may be happening without looking at your Mailchimp and WordPress setup. A fix may be to create a new Audience as unsubscribes in one Audience don’t affect another Audience.
Hi Gary, if i want to sent an email to a recently imported csv list, I’m receiving an error massage “You need to have at least 1 subscriber in order to send the emai”. Does that mean that I cannot mail potential prospects? If so..that’s not feir frm mailchimp.
Hi Alex,
Please check:
Hi Gary,
I basically wanted to delete about 50 of my contacts due to inactivity. In order to make that easier I planned to delete all contacts and then import the ones that are still active again. Turns out you “cannot import contacts that were once permanently deleted..”
Is there anything I can do to get those contact back into my mailchimp account?
Cheers!
Hi Simon,
You could create a new Audience and import those people into the new Audience.
Hi Gary Maybe you can help me?
If af person ones has been on my list and gone through the workflow, and has been unsubscribed, and then is subscribing again, How can they get through the same workflow again?
I’m assuming you’re referring to an Automation email? If so then it depends what the trigger on your Automation is; if you’re triggering the Automation based on the subscribe date then the email won’t be sent to resubscribes. You could use the Mailchimp ‘Last updated’ filed to trigger the emails in which case a resubscribe will trigger the email.
Hi Gary,
it’s really annoying that the only way is using a “mailchimp hosted signup form” and not for example an Elementor Signup form linked to Mailchimp, because it’s extremely hard to customize the mailchimp hosted signup form.
In particular, if I try to do it from Mailchimp there are tons of information that I don’t need and can’t delete (I’d only need name and mail). What is your suggestion for this?
Hi Riccardo, you can easily hide fields so that they do not show on your Mailchimp hosted form.
Add Hidden Fields to a Signup Form
I imported a list of contacts but accidentally labeled them “Non-subscribers”, not understanding that I wouldn’t be able to send them ANY emails. I’ve selected the email addresses and tried to resubscribe them but even after mailchimp says they were resubscribed, I can’t seem to send them anything.
…also worried if multiple attempts at fixing this will end up with these people receiving too many verificaiton or welcome emails in the process.
HELP!
Hi Hannah, I don’t believe that there is a means of changing the email marketing status from “non-subscribed” to “subscribed” without using an integration. You’ll likely need to contact Mailchimp directly for assistance with this.
Hannah,
I made the same mistake. Where you able to get this fixed? If so can you please advise?
Hi Gary,
I accidentally added 9 contacts as “non-subscribed” but I meant to add them as “subscribed.” Is there a way to change them from “non-subscribed” to “subscribed”?
-Carolyn
Hi Carol, the method in this article doesn’t work for you?
Hello Gary – First off, thanks for this thread its been very helpful. I do have one question though – is it possible to re-subscribe people to an email list in bulk? Due to Covid, a lot of people have temporarily suspended accounts with us that they plan to reactivate later. While they’re suspended we don’t want to send them emails and can bulk import their email addresses to unsubscribe them. However, we do want to resubscribe them later when they reactivate their accounts. Its enough people where manually re-subscribing them would take forever.
Hi Allison, you won’t be able to resubscribe in bulk. It will be best for you to Archive (https://organicweb.com.au/marketing/tutorial-archive-mailchimp-contacts/) instead of Unsubscribe. By Archiving you won’t send to those contacts whilst they’re Archived. When you want to un-Archive merely do an import from e.g. CSV file for the Archived contacts you want un-Archived (Mailchimp will automatically un-Archive contacts when changes are made to their profiles so by doing an import this will change the last updated field in Mailchimp and therefore Mailchimp will un-Archive the contacts).
Thank you! This is very helpful.
I am new to mailchimp and it seems that I made a HUGE mistake when importing my contacts, because I ticked non-subscribed. Now I cannot change that? I cannot find any answer to this problem online. (except I would have to get permission from each contact to subscribe? I already got this at my event!) This would be my first newsletter, I am so frustrated, thinking about quitting right now. Please help me.
The best thing to do is create a new Audience and import the subscribers as ‘Subscribed’.
Hello,
I really need help with Mailchimp… I imported 560 contacts but I received a mail “Omnivore Warning”, so Mailchimp proposed me to send a reconfirmation Email and I did not accept as these contacts are new, I’ve never added them before so I don’t understand the problem. Now, my contacts have the unsubscribed status and even if I try to add Resubscribe them, I receive this message “100 members queued to be resubscribed”. Do you know what I can do to add them as subscribers?
Thank you,
Léa
Hi Léa, Mailchimp will show the Omnivore warning and auto-unsubscribe contacts if there is a high chance of a high proportion of the contact email addresses bouncing. Check thatt eh email addresses are valid through a service such as https://kickbox.com/, remove the low quality addresses, create a new Audience in Mailchimp and then import the high quality email addresses.
Hello Gary,
Thank you for your answer! This is exactly what we did and we noticed that the list had a lot of invalid emails and catch all emails as well. But we have another problem: we can’t add the valid emails as all the emails of the list are considered “Unsubscribed” and I don’t manage to resubscribe them. Do you think that I can delete all the emails that had been automatically unsubscribed from the first list I uploaded so that I can add the valid list ?
Thank you so much for your help,
Léa
Hi Léa,
The easiest way to get around this issue is to create a new Audience and import the valid email addresses into the new Audience.
Hello Gary !
Thank you so much, it worked !!!!! 😀
Have a nice day!
Glad it worked 🙂
Hi Gary,
we use Mailchimp for all our marketing-mailings several years now. We have several audiences, depending on their product-focus. Some of our clients unsubscribed during the years, most of them not.
Now we want to send regally relevant mails to ALL our clients by mailchimp (therms of condition changed and information about pricing). We are committed to reach every client, also the unsubscribers.
Do you have a solution how it works?
Thank you and greetings from Germany!
Nicole
Hi Nicole,
You will need to seek further advise from someone in Europe (because of the GDPR). In most countries however a change in terms and conditions email would be considered a transactional email. If you’re creating and sending your email in Mailchimp itself you’re sending marketing/bulk emails and not transactional emails. You may read more at https://mailchimp.com/help/about-transactional-email/
Hi Gary,
We have contacts that are cleaned, for they changed there email adress. Therefore Mailchimp list the email as unsubscribed. Is there a way to correct this email adress?
Annette
(The Netherlands)
Hi Annette,
Once an email is marked as ‘cleaned’ it usually isn’t possible to change the status. Add the new email addresses as new contacts into Mailchimp as subscribed.
Hi Gary!
I hope you could help me with this one.
I imported a list of nearly 200 contacts to my audience on Mailchimp. During the import process I by accident chose “non-subscribed” instead of “subscribed”, and now I can’t send these contacts any marketing mail. What to do? How do I change the contacts from “non-subscribed” to “subscribed”?
Hi Sand,
Try undoing your import and importing again: https://mailchimp.com/help/undo-contact-import/