Use a contact group (formerly called a “distribution list”) to send an email to multiple people—a project team, a committee, etc—without having to add each name to the To, Cc, or Bcc line individually. It’s typically easier to create a distribution list when all the addresses already exist in an address book or Global Address List but doing so isn’t necessary. You also can add new addresses to a new distribution list on the fly.

Create a Contact Group on Windows

For the most up to date instructions, please see Microsoft’s documentation for PC (Windows) or Mac below.

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-contact-group-or-distribution-list-in-outlook-for-pc-88ff6c60-0a1d-4b54-8c9d-9e1a71bc3023

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-contact-list-or-distribution-list-in-outlook-for-mac-c5230b49-5e00-481b-a2ce-66f388f7bd34

Modifying a Contact Group

1. Double click the contact group in your Contacts folder.

2. To remove a name, highlight the name and click Remove Member in the Ribbon.

3. To add a name, click Add Members and follow the steps as instructed above.

4. Click Save & Close to save your changes.

Creating a New Message to Send to a Contact Group

To use a contact group to send email, you can right click the distribution list and select Create | Email . Contact Groups are shown in bold in your Contacts folder.

You can also create a meeting request to a contact group by right clicking on the list and selecting Create | Meeting

You can also select New Items | Message. Then click the To: button and select your contact group from the Contacts folder or type the contact group name in the To: field. You will need to change the Address Book to Contacts if it is set to Global Address List.

Dynamic Contact Group

This is for the situation where you want to send a message to the list but not to certain individual members. You might want to use this feature if you were planning a surprise retirement party for someone in the office. You can send a message to the entire list and remove that one person.

1. Create a new message to send to your contact group as instructed above.

2. Expand the list by clicking on the plus sign in front of the contact group name. (You may want to select and drag the contact group to the Bcc field so that recipients will not see the other names on the distribution list.)

3. A pop-up window will appear to let you know that an expanded list cannot be collapsed.

4. Delete the individual names that you want to exclude. Complete and send the message.

Restore a Delete Contact Group

If you accidentally delete a contact group, go directly to your Deleted Items folder; the distribution list should still be there. Retention depends on how your Outlook e-mail account is set up. If you are using a home or personal account, the list will be permanently deleted once you empty the Deleted Items folder or when you close Outlook.

1. Open the Contacts Folder.

2. Select Contacts or All Contact lists, then Manage and choose Restore deleted contacts.

Open

You can also restore deleted contact lists from the deleted items menu.

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Deleted Items.

2. Locate your contact group, and drag it to the Contacts button at the bottom of the Navigation Pane.

Recover a distribution list once the Deleted Items folder has been emptied

1. In the Deleted Items folder, click Recover Deleted Items on the Tools menu.

2. Locate the distribution list and then click Recover Selected Items .
   Note: You cannot recover an item if it does not appear in the Recover Deleted Items dialog box.

3. In the main message list, drag the distribution list to the Contacts button at the bottom of the Navigation Pane.