Edit an Active Classic Automation

After you start your classic automation, you'll be able to make changes to the workflow and the emails it contains. When editing the overall automation, you can pause or resume all of your emails, change your workflow settings, reorder the sequence of content, and add new emails.

In this article, you'll learn how to find and edit an active classic automation workflow.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• Classic Automations are only available to accounts that have previously created a classic automation.
• To learn how to edit triggers, schedules, segments, actions, or content, check out Edit Classic Automation Emails.
• To learn how to change who receives your automation, read Manage Subscribers in a Classic Automation.
• Date-based automations allow subscribers to move in and out of queues, depending on their eligibility and your delivery settings. If the overall automation or an individual email is paused on the date a subscriber is scheduled to receive an email, the subscriber misses that email and moves into the next email queue in the automation.
• Certain single-email automations, like the abandoned cart email, product retargeting email, order notifications, and one-click welcome automation, can't be replicated.
• It's possible to change a Classic Automation into a Customer Journey. To learn more, check out Change a Classic Automation to a Customer Journey.

Pause or resume a classic automation

After a classic automation is active, you can no longer make changes to the workflow type or list. However, you can pause emails in an automation, individually or all at once, to make other changes.

Pause automation

To pause all emails in a classic automation, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns.
   

2. Click All campaigns.

3. Click the drop-down menu for the classic automation you want to work with and choose Edit.
   

4. Click Pause All Emails.
   
   Some types of automations look a little different. For these, you’ll click Pause and Edit.
   

Now that your overall classic automation is paused, you can make changes to any of its emails. Remember that paused automations continue to build a queue, and will send to the queue when restarted.

Resume automation

To resume all emails in a classic automation, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns.
   

2. Click All campaigns.

3. Click the drop-down menu for the classic automation you want to work with and choose Edit.
   

4. Click Resume All Emails.
   
   Some types of automations look a little different. For these, you'll click Resume Sending.
   

Change your audience

After your classic automation is active, you can’t change the audience. However, depending on the kind of automation you're working with, you can make a copy of an automation and send it to a new audience.

If you're working with a one-click automation, like the one-click welcome email, replication is not an option. You'll need to create a new automation to send to the new audience. Then, you can archive the original automation if you don't want to send it anymore.

To change the audience in a classic automation, follow these steps.

1. Pause all emails in the automation you want to work with.
2. Return to the Campaigns page.
3. Click the drop-down menu next to the automation you want to work with and choose Replicate.
   
4. Select a new audience in the Replicate Automation pop-up modal.

Now that you have selected a different audience, you can make additional changes to the automation before you start sending. You may want to resume or archive the original automation.

Edit settings

In your classic automation settings, you can rename your automation, change your From name or From email address, choose different tracking options, and more.

To edit most types of classic automations in Mailchimp, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns.
   

2. Click All campaigns.

3. Click the drop-down menu for the classic automation you want to work with, and choose Edit.
   

4. Click Edit Settings.
   

5. Edit your Workflow name, From name, or From email address as needed. You can also change the tracking options and other settings.

6. Click Update Settings.
   
7. Navigate to the Confirm step and click Resume Workflow.

Reorder email content in a classic automation

If you want to reorder the information you send, you can swap the content between two draft or paused emails in your classic automation. The triggers, scheduling, segmentation settings, queues, post-send actions, and reporting will remain in the same position.

To reorder email content in a classic automation, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns.
   

2. Click All campaigns.

3. Click the drop-down menu for the classic automation you want to work with and choose Edit.
   

4. Click and drag the three vertical dots next to the draft or paused email, and drag the content to its new position. It's important to note that the email you want to swap content with must also be in a draft or paused state.
   

Add an email

After you start a classic automation, you can continue to add new emails.

After a subscriber completes an activity-based automation, we continue to hold them at the end of the automation queue. Although a subscriber can only move through an automation once, they'll receive any new emails you add to the end of the workflow. If you don't want queued subscribers to receive the new email, use segmentation to filter them out.

To add an email to an active classic automation, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns.
   

2. Click All campaigns.

3. Click the drop-down menu for the classic automation you want to work with, and choose Edit.
   

4. Click Add Another Email.
   

5. Continue through the Email Designer to create your automated email.

6. When you're done, return to your automation timeline and click Start Email.
   

Repeat this process to include up to 100 emails in your automation.

Archive a classic automation

When you archive a classic automation, you permanently end the automation and keep its report data. This is a great option when an automation has run its course and you want to maintain the campaign report, or save the workflow to replicate later.

After you archive a classic automation, you cannot restart it. If you want to resume your automation later, pause it instead.

To archive a classic automation, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns.
   

2. Click All campaigns.

3. Click the drop-down menu for the classic automation you want to work with, and choose Archive.
   

4. In the Are you sure? pop-up modal, type ARCHIVE, and click Archive.
   

You can find your archived classic automations in the Archived folder on the Campaigns page. We’ll create the folder the first time you archive an automation.

Delete a classic automation

When you delete a classic automation, you also delete its report data. Automation reports give insights into how automations perform, and can help you understand how to improve subscriber engagement. To save this information, archive your automation instead, or export your report before you delete anything from your account.

To delete a classic automation, follow these steps.

1. Pause all emails in the automation you want to delete.
2. Save and return to the Campaigns page.
3. Check the box for the automation you want to delete.
   
4. Click Delete.
   
5. In the Are you sure? pop-up modal, type DELETE, and click Delete.