Manage Contacts in Sequences

Overview

After you add contacts to a sequence, you can review their progress and manage how they move through the sequence. Use the sequence contact list to check statuses, pause outreach, resume contacts, mark contacts as finished, remove contacts, or re-enroll contacts.

Add Before You Act

Need to add contacts to a sequence first? Check out Add Contacts to a Sequence.

Not sure which action to take? Use this guide to decide how to manage contacts in a sequence.

Your Goal	Best Action
Check where contacts stand in a sequence.	Review contact status to see whether contacts are active, paused, finished, bounced, or not sent.
Temporarily stop outreach for specific contacts.	Pause contacts to stop outreach for selected contacts without turning off the entire sequence.
Continue outreach for paused contacts.	Resume contacts when paused contacts are ready to continue moving through the sequence.
End outreach, but keep activity history.	Mark contacts as finished when contacts replied, booked a meeting, unsubscribed, changed jobs, or no longer need follow-up.
Remove contacts from the wrong sequence.	Remove contacts when contacts were added by mistake or shouldn’t continue in the current sequence.
Start removed or finished contacts over from step one.	Restart contacts by cloning the sequence, then adding contacts to the cloned sequence.

Review Contact Status

Review contact status to check where contacts stand in a sequence and find contacts you want to manage in bulk.

You may want to review contacts when:

You added contacts, but they don’t appear in scheduled emails.
You want to find contacts that are paused, finished, bounced, or not sent.
You need to check whether Apollo skipped or blocked a contact.
You want to pause, resume, finish, remove, or re-enroll contacts in bulk.

To review contacts:

Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
Click the sequence.
Click Contacts.
Use filters to find contacts by status.

Apollo shows each contact’s sequence status so you can check whether they’re active, paused, finished, bounced, or not sent.

Status Check

If you don’t see the contacts you expect, clear your filters and search again. A status filter may hide contacts that are paused, finished, bounced, or not sent.

Pause Contacts in a Sequence

Pause contacts to temporarily stop outreach for specific people without turning off the entire sequence. Other contacts can continue moving through the sequence.

To pause contacts:

Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
Click the sequence.
Click Contacts.
Check the contacts you want to pause.
Click Pause Sequence.

Optional: Choose an automatic resume date.
Click Pause.

You've now paused the selected contacts. You can resume them later manually or with an automatic resume date.

Resume Contacts in a Sequence

Resume contacts when paused contacts are ready to continue moving through a sequence. Apollo continues their sequence progress based on your selection.

To resume contacts:

Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
Click the sequence.
Click Contacts.
Use Sequence Status filters to find paused contacts.
Check the contacts you want to resume.
Click Resume.

Optional: Click Set Auto-resume date to choose a future resume date.

Apollo resumes the selected contacts.

Apollo’s Got Your Back

If Apollo pauses a contact because it detects an out-of-office reply, you may not need to resume the contact manually. Apollo can resume the contact based on the out-of-office response when a return date is available.

Mark Contacts as Finished

Mark contacts as finished when you want to end their time in a sequence without removing their activity history, such as emails, opens, clicks, and replies.

To mark contacts as finished:

Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
Click the sequence.
Click Contacts.
Check the contacts you want to finish.
Click Mark as Finished.

Choose a reason for marking contacts as finished.
Click Mark Finished.

You've now marked the selected contacts as finished.

Remove Contacts

Remove contacts when they were added to the wrong sequence or shouldn’t continue in the current sequence. For most completed outreach, use Mark as Finished instead.

Careful Cut

Use Remove from Sequence carefully. It’s best for correcting enrollment mistakes, moving contacts out of the wrong sequence, or removing contacts that don’t match the sequence audience.

To remove contacts:

Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
Click the sequence.
Click Contacts.
Check the contacts you want to remove.
Click Remove from Sequence.

Click Remove.

You've now removed the selected contacts from the sequence.

Clean Break

Use Mark as Finished when the contact has completed outreach or no longer needs follow-up. Use Remove from Sequence when the contact was added by mistake. Apollo keeps the contact’s activity history in both cases.

Restart Contacts

Restart contacts when you want them to begin again from step one. Clone the sequence, then add the contacts to the cloned sequence.

Progress Check

If you add removed or finished contacts back to the same sequence, Apollo may remember their previous progress to help prevent duplicate outreach. To have contacts begin again from step one, clone the sequence and add the contacts to the cloned sequence.

To restart contacts:

Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
Open the sequence you want to use as a starting point.
Clone the sequence.

Add the contacts to the cloned sequence.

You've now enrolled the contacts in the cloned sequence from step one.

Next Steps

Keep your sequence momentum going with these related resources for setup, timing, safety rules, and performance tracking.

Add Contacts to a Sequence	Ready to grow your outreach list? Add contacts to a sequence to enroll the right prospects and start tracking their progress from the Contacts tab.
Create a Sequence	Need a fresh path for restarted contacts? Create or clone a sequence to give your team a clean outreach flow with the right steps, schedule, and ruleset.
Configure a Sequence Sending Schedule	Set the right pace before contacts move forward and configure a sequence sending schedule to control when Apollo sends emails across time zones and business hours.
Manage Sequence Rulesets	Want fewer blocked or skipped sends? Manage sequence rulesets to protect deliverability and keep outreach aligned with your team’s sending requirements.
Report on Sequences	After contacts move through your sequence, report on sequence performance to spot what’s working, compare results, and improve future outreach.