How to Create Group Email in Outlook – Creating a group to send email in Outlook is a great way to organize your contacts. Usually available when you create the group is the option to ‘send email from group’ or something similar with similar wording. This gives you the ability to customize the signature, customize the BCC line so it does not look like they are all in the same place, and even customize individual recipients if needed!
Creating group email in microsoft mail is very easy, actually it’s the easiest way. The solution is simple and you don’t need any special knowledge to achieve it, all you need to do is follow these steps:
Table of Contents
What is Group Emailing?
Group Emailing is sending multiple emails to a specific group of people. You can create group email in Outlook and then use the same to send emails to groups of people together. If you are someone who wants to be regularly in touch with people and don’t want to add each member every time, Group email is what you need. You can create a contact list and then add recipients to the same.
How to Create Group Email in Outlook
The process of setting up an Outlook contact list varies slightly depending on whether you use Windows, Mac, or the Outlook Web App (OWA).
Let’s take a look at how to set up a distribution group on each platform:
A. For Windows Platforms
Mostly this is a progressive method used by Sales Professionals, Marketers, Recruiters and other Business Professionals to create group email in Outlook. If you are also looking for a fruitful and high yielding email campaign technique to send multiple emails, you should opt-in for it.
With tools like SalesHandy, you can simply add your contact lists and send group email in outlook. On top of that, you can schedule your emails, create auto follow-ups and use personalization techniques to give more human touch to your emails. Along with this, you can also know your customer behavior by tracking their link clicks, replies and open rates.
Simple Steps to Create An Email Group In Outlook
Here we will show you how to create a group email in Outlook in two parts.
In Part 1 we will make a contact list of recipients and in Part 2, the process of sending group emails in professional way.
Part 1: Creating a CSV file and export
If you are using group email in Outlook, you need to make a CSV file of your contacts. Follow the below steps to do the same.
Step 1- Log into your Outlook account and click on the File menu, it will open a dialogue box as shown below
Step 2- Choose Open & Export >> Import/Export
Step 3- Click on Export to a file and Select Next
Step 4- Select Comma Separated Values and hit Next
Step 5- Click on Contacts and select the folder where you want to export it. Click Next to proceed
Step 6- Name the File and click Save. Your Outlook contacts will be saved as a CSV file in your system
Now that I’ve covered how to create a list of contact emails for Outlook on Windows let’s look at the distribution list process for Mac systems.
B. For Mac Platforms
Follow these steps to create group in Outlook for Mac devices:
Step 1
Open Outlook, go to the navigation bar and click on People.
Image source: support.microsoft.com
Step 2
Then, select Home > New Contact List from the navigation bar to create a new group.
Step 3
When the contact group window pops up, set a group name for your list of contact emails.
Step 4
Select Add just below the navigation bar and select members using their email address to add a contact to the contact list.
You can keep adding multiple people to your new group through the members’ box.
You can even add an existing list of contact emails to your new list.
Step 5
When you select members and finish your contact list, click on Save & Close, and the members box will disappear. After you click save, you can test your contact group by sending a new email to your list of contact emails.
Now that I’ve covered how you can create an email group on Outlook for Mac, let’s look at setting up an email group on the Outlook Web App (OWA).
C. For the Outlook Web App
Here’s how you can set up an email group on the Outlook Web App:
Step 1
Go to the Outlook web app (OWA) and click on the Contacts icon on the left side.
Step 2
Click on the small arrow next to the blue New contact button and select New group from the drop-down menu.
Step 3
When the dialog box opens, type in the name of the contact group that you want to create. You can type in the group content in the description field, then click on Create.
Step 4
Type in the email addresses or names of the contacts you want to add to the email group. Once you’ve selected contacts to add to the group, click on Add, and you’re done!
If you’re the group owner, you can easily find the groups you’ve created. Just click on the three lines on the people page and then go to Groups > Owner.
I’ve covered how you can create an email group on Windows, Mac and the OWA.
But if you’re the group owner, how do you send emails to your Outlook distribution list?
How to Send an Email to a Contact Group in Outlook
Here’s how to send emails to an email group with multiple people you’ve created on Outlook:
On Outlook, open a new email message and type in the body and subject. In the To field, instead of typing in mail addresses, start typing the group ID.
When the prompt appears, click on it and hit Send – your email will be on its way to members’ inboxes.
That’s all you need to do to send group emails to a contact group on Outlook.
Now that we’ve seen how you can send group emails to your Outlook distribution list, let’s see how a group owner can edit the contact list.
How to Edit a Contact List in Outlook
What if you want to add a new email contact or change the group ID of an existing group?
It’s simple!
Just open Outlook and type a new message. Then, type in the group ID in the ‘To’ field. Then, right-click on the list and select ‘Edit Contact.’
The contact group tab will then open, and you can add new members or remove members from the existing group easily!
Note: This process remains largely unchanged irrespective of the platform you use with Outlook.
Now that I’ve covered all you need to know about Outlook email groups, let’s take a look at the types of groups on Outlook.
Outlook Basics
There are two types of email contact groups in Microsoft Outlook:
A. Microsoft Office 365 group
This type of group is centered around one “group email address.”
An Office 365 group allows team members to access emails sent to one address from a shared mailbox. For example, a project team that shares a group email address is a Microsoft Office 365 group.
Anyone who sends an email to the team can send it to the shared mailbox of the Office 365 group. This way, they don’t have to send separate emails to each group member.
Since the whole group has access to a shared mailbox and group calendar, coordinating emails and group conversations is much easier!
B. Outlook contact group
This is the kind of group that we covered in this article.
A contact group (also known as a distribution list) is a collection of email addresses you can email together.
Members of a new contact group don’t share the same email address — and don’t even have to be part of the same organization. They can be pretty much anyone you want to send emails to as a group!
After setting up the group, you can send emails, calendar invitations, and reminders to all your group members with just one click. When you send an email to the group, it will get delivered to each recipient.
Note: Outlook email groups are not the same as a calendar group that lets you create shared calendars.
Conclusion
Gmail has made group creation and management very easy and flexible. However, it doesn’t allow us to create and send email to a group as an individual. After we create a group we can send email to this group but all the members will get the mail as they are a part of that group.