Usage of 'Dear All' [duplicate]
Is it correct to use "Dear All" at the beginning of the e-mail, when you are writing to more than one person?
It seems so informal to me. Is there any better way?
It depends on how formal or informal the tone of conversation is.
First and foremost, consider who the audience is and what level of formality is appropriate to address them. There is no one blanket one-size-fits-all "best" way. If you address a group of colleagues in your own company, you may want to use "Hi all, ...". If you address the shareholders of your company, you may want to be more formal, e.g. "Dear Shareholder, ...". If etiquette is really important, you may want to invest in a mail merge to email, so you can address each person individually and avoid the mass email feel altogether.
In internal company communications, I've seen the following variants in action:
the IT Help Desk sends out an email to all employees to notify them about a system change. The distribution list is "All employees". The email does NOT start with an address at all, but delves right into the subject: "Please note: tomorrow morning there will be an outage ..."
A project manager sends out an email to the project team. The email starts with "Hello all, please prepare your status reports ..."
The CEO sends out an email to all employees and starts it with "Team, there has been some negative press coverage ..."
It is informal, and there are better ways :
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen/Dear Sirs/Madams:/Dear Readers