# Email action: AddressException\[Illegal address\] when sending to address list
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Tags:** elastic-stack-alerting
**Created:** [June 26, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452 "2015-06-26T18:12:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cciaccio](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/cciaccio)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452/1 "2015-06-26T18:12:21Z")
I keep getting the AddressException[Illegal address] error when I try to send alerts to multiple email addresses.
This is the "to" attribute in my email action:
"to" : "'name1@domain1.com, [name2@domain.com](mailto:name2@domain.com)'"
or
"to" : "['name1@domain1.com', 'name2@domain1.com']",
Am I doing anything wrong?
Thanks
---
### Author:  [@uboness](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/uboness)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452/2 "2015-06-26T18:33:50Z")
can you show the error you're getting?
---
### Author:  [@uboness](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/uboness)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452/3 "2015-06-26T18:34:18Z")
oh... your array in enclosed in quotes... remove the quotes
---
### Author:  [@cciaccio](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/cciaccio)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2015, 6:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452/4 "2015-06-26T18:58:31Z")
if I remove the quotes I get a JsonParseException when I try to load the watch:
curl -XPUT [http://localhost:9200/\_watcher/watch/my\_watch](http://localhost:9200/_watcher/watch/my_watch) -d@watches/my\_watch\_1.json
{"error":"RemoteTransportException[[master\_node][inet[/172.17.0.15:9300]][cluster:admin/watcher/watch/put]]; nested: WatcherException[failed to put watch [my\_watch]]; nested: WatcherException[could not parse watch [my\_watch]]; nested: JsonParseException[Unexpected character (''' (code 39)): expected a valid value (number, String, array, object, 'true', 'false' or 'null')\n at [Source: UNKNOWN; line: 1, column: 549]]; ","status":500}
This is my watch:
{
"trigger" : {
"schedule" : { "interval" : "30s" }
},
"input" : {
"http" : {
"request" : {
"host" : "myclusterIP",
"port" : 9200,
"path" : "/cds\_integration-\*/\_search",
"body" : "{ "query" : { "filtered" : { "query" : {"match" : {"log\_level": "ERROR"}}, "filter" : { "range" : {"@timestamp" : {"gte" : "now-1d"}} } } } }"
}
}
},
"condition" : {
"compare" : { "ctx.payload.hits.total" : { "gt" : 0 }}
},
"actions" : {
"alert" : {
"email" : {
"to" : ['myfirst.mylast@mmodal.com', 'myfirst.mylast@gmail.com'],
"subject" : "Watcher test",
"body" : "Automatic message from Watcher\n\nFound ERRORS in today's cds\_integration logs!"
}
}
}
}
---
### Author:  [@cciaccio](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/cciaccio)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452/5 "2015-06-26T19:13:47Z")
Solved my problem. I replaced the single quotes with double quotes inside the array:
from:
"to" : ['myfirst.mylast@mmodal.com', 'myfirst.mylast@gmail.com'],
to:
"to" : ["myfirst.mylast@mmodal.com", "myfirst.mylast@gmail.com"],
Thanks
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 1:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/email-action-addressexception-illegal-address-when-sending-to-address-list/24452/6 "2017-07-06T13:49:23Z")