Forum Discussion
How to add a large group of emails to a new Outlook group?
If you are looking to create a distribution or contact group in Outlook with over 100 names from your contact list, and the dropdown menu in the "Select Members" window doesn't provide the option you need, you can consider an alternative method. Here's an approach using categories:
- Open Outlook and go to the "People" section.
- In your contact list, categorize the contacts you want to include in your group. To do this, select a contact, right-click, choose "Categorize," and assign a category. Repeat this for all contacts you want to include.
- After categorizing the contacts, go back to the "Home" tab and click on "New Contact Group" to create a new contact group.
- In the contact group window, enter a name for the group in the "Name" field.
- Click on the "Add Members" button in the toolbar.
- Select "From Outlook Contacts" from the dropdown menu.
- In the "Select Members" window, switch to the "Categories" tab.
- You should see the categories you assigned to your contacts. Select the category that includes the contacts you want to add to the group.
- Hold down the "Ctrl" key on your keyboard and click on each contact in the category to select them.
- Click on the "Members ->" button to add the selected contacts to the contact group.
- Click "OK" to close the "Select Members" window.
- Review the list of contacts in the contact group and click "Save & Close" to save the group.
By categorizing your contacts first and then selecting them based on categories, you can efficiently add a large number of contacts to a contact group in Outlook. This method allows you to bypass the limitations you encountered with the dropdown menu and still achieve your goal of creating a group with over 100 names. The text and steps were edited with the help of AI.
My answers are voluntary and without guarantee!
Hope this will help you.
I'm working out of Outlook web.
On the screen for Add Members, there isn't a dropdown box Just a single line to type in manually. Typing the Category list name does nothing, has to be an email address.
I have the same issue and see the same screen. I tried from the Outlook Windows desktop app and browser version. None of the instructions I have tried above have worked because there is no drop-down list to choose from.
I tried typing in a distribution list name and it doesn't find it. Also tried pasting all emails at once, but it doesn't accept that either.
Seems like adding multiple people to a group at once should be basic feature (after all it is a group). Not sure what else to try.If you are using Outlook on the web and are experiencing limitations in adding contacts to a contact group directly from a category list, you might need to use a workaround.
Here's an alternative method:
- Open Outlook on the web and go to the "People" section.
- Create a new contact group by clicking on "New" and then selecting "Contact Group."
- Give your contact group a name.
- Open a new browser tab and go to your main Outlook on the web page.
- In this tab, go to "People" and select the category that includes the contacts you want to add to the group.
- Copy the email addresses of the contacts (you can do this by right-clicking on the selected email addresses and choosing "Copy").
- Return to the tab where you are creating the contact group and paste the email addresses into the "Members" field manually.
- After pasting the email addresses, separate them with semicolons (;) if they are not automatically separated.
- Click "Save" or the equivalent option to save the contact group.
This method involves copying and pasting the email addresses manually from your category list to the contact group, bypassing the absence of a direct option to select contacts from categories in the "Add Members" section on Outlook on the web. The text and steps were edited with the help of AI.
It is always helpful to provide accurate information when you need help. Information such as version, operating system, possible storage medium, error message, photos, etc. This would save everyone a lot of time. Please remember that I and many others here are simple users like you and our time is just as valuable as yours. At the same time, I recommend that you always start a new discussion if you would like to have a tailor-made answer to your personal concern.
My answers are voluntary and without guarantee!
Hope this will help you.
NikolinoDE
Theitem 3 & 4 lines do not show in Web based Outlook. And the other item is that I'm trying to add new contacts in bulk to an existing group.
Here's an alternative method:
- Open Outlook and go to the "People" section.
- In the toolbar at the top, click on the "Home" tab.
- Click on the "New Contact Group" button. This will open a new window for creating a contact group.
- In the contact group window, enter a name for the group in the "Name" field.
- Click on the "Add Members" button in the toolbar at the top.
- From the dropdown menu, select "From Address Book". This will open the "Select Members" window.
- In the "Select Members" window, click on the address book or contacts folder that contains the emails you want to add to the group.
- Hold down the "Ctrl" key on your keyboard and click on each email address you want to add to the group. This allows you to select multiple email addresses at once.
- After selecting all the desired email addresses, click on the "Members ->" button to add them to the contact group.
- Once you have added all the email addresses, click on the "OK" button to close the "Select Members" window.
- Back in the contact group window, you will see the list of email addresses you added. You can review and modify the names or email addresses if needed.
- Click on the "Save & Close" button to save the contact group
This no longer works in the "New Outlook" (1.2024.124.100). Copying a list of addresses at best will "find" the last one in the list. At worst, it will resolve to no one.
It appears that you can now only add one address at a time. That's fine if you have a few addresses to add, but not fine if you need to create a group of 60 people.
Maybe there's a way with PowerAutomate?
So the above will not do in batch, the addition of each member will need to be manually completed.
