How to Create an Email Contact Group in Outlook

A contact group in Outlook is a set of email addresses you can message simultaneously. This is particularly useful when you send the same message to the same group of people frequently.

Members of this contact group don’t necessarily need to be in your organization (for Microsoft 365 users) or your contact list. You can add anyone to your contact group as long as their email addresses are valid.

This guide shows you how to create a contact group on the Outlook desktop and web apps.

Create an Email Contact Group on Outlook Desktop App

1. Launch Outlook desktop app. Then, click on New Items in the top ribbon.

   

2. Select More Items and click on Contact Group. This will open a new window.

   

3. Enter a name for your group in the “Name” field.

   

4. Select Add Members in the top ribbon.

   

5. From the drop-down menu, pick a location you want to extract the contacts from. You have three options for this.
   • From Outlook Contacts: These are the email addresses of people you manually added to your contact list.
   • From Address Book: These are email addresses of people within your organization (if you are subscribed to Microsoft 365).
   • New E-mail Contact: You can create a new contact using this option.

     

6. Select the contact you want to add to your group. Then, click on Members. Do this for the other people you want to include in the group.

   

7. After you’ve finished adding people, hit OK. Then, click on Save & Close in the next window.

   

   

Sending an Email to Your New Contact Group

1. On the Outlook desktop app, click New Email.

   

2. In the “To” field, enter the name of the contact group you’ve previously created.

   

3. Type your email as usual. Then, hit Send.

   

Adding/Removing a Member to a Previously Created Contact Group

1. Select the People icon on the bottom left of the screen.

   

2. Choose the contact group name from the contact list.

   

3. Click on the three dots beside the “Send email” option.

   

4. Click Edit Contact.

   

5. On the top ribbon, you can select Add Members to add a new contact to the group or Remove member to remove a previously added member. When finished, hit Save & Close.

   

   

Create an Email Contact Group on Outlook Web App

1. Log in to outlook.com and click the People icon on the left-hand panel.

   

2. Click the arrow to the right of “New contact” and choose New group from the drop-down menu.

   

3. Enter the name you want to call your group under the “Group name” field.

   

4. (Optional) Add a description for your group under the “Description” field. Then, hit Create.

   

5. Type the name or email address of who you want to add to your contact group. Then, press Enter on your keyboard to add them.

   

6. After adding members, click Add to save the contact group.

   

Sending an Email to Your Newly Created Contact Group

1. Sign in to outlook.com and click New message.

   

2. In the “To” field, type the name of the contact group you’ve previously created.

   

3. Write your email as usual. Then, hit the Send button.

   

Adding/Removing a Member in a Previously Created Contact Group

1. Go to the People icon on the left-hand pane.

   

2. Navigate to the “Groups” section and click on Owner.

   

3. Select your group from the list. Then, go to the Members tab.

   

4. To add a new member, click Add members.

   

   To remove a member, click on the X mark next to their name and choose Yes on the pop-up window.