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Create a Contact Group from a List of Addresses

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› Tutorials › Create a Contact Group from a List of Addresses

Last reviewed on June 3, 2020     51 Comments

If all recipients are in your address book (in Contacts or GAL) or the address is in the display name (either the address only or in this format: "Diane (diane@domain.com)" ) you can copy from the To and CC fields in any version of Outlook. Outlook will resolve the names to the contacts.

You can use any list of email addresses to create a DL (or Contact Group), including from Excel or a custom view in Outlook (with only the display name and email address visible.) The only requirement is that each member's information needs to be delimited with a semi-colon or paragraph mark (one name and address per line). If there is not a display name, the address will be used for the display name in the finished DL.

poremsky <me@gmail.domain.com>
Diane Poremsky <me@domain.com>; <diane@domain.com>;

Which Group command to use?

Outlook, when used with Office 365 Exchange accounts, has two types of Groups available. You need to select Contact Group, not Group. The Group command will create and Office 365 Group, which is a special type of mailbox.

From the New Items button, you need to select More Items > Contact Group.
use more items, contact group

In the Contacts module, use New Contact Group.
use new contact group

Create a Contact Group from an Email

If you use Outlook 2010 or newer, you can hit Reply All then copy the addresses from the To and CC fields.
copy the entries from the To and CC fields

Paste into the members field of a Contact Group form (DL).
paste into the Members field

Create a DL (Contact Group) from a List of Addresses

This method is only needed if you use older versions of Outlook.

While you can get the addresses from any semi-colon delimited or one address per line list, this page was originally written to help people who wanted to create a DL from addresses in a message they were CC'd on. The instructions to create the DL once you have the list of addresses is below.

To get the addresses from the Internet header

  1. Right click on the message.
  2. Choose Message Options
  3. Click in the header field of the Message options dialog and press Ctrl+A to select all, Ctrl+C to copy.
  4. Close the dialog.
  5. Open a new message form and paste the header into it. I press Ctrl+A to select the signature then Ctrl+V to paste over it.
  6. Delete the content below the addresses and above it.
  7. Remove the text "To:" "CC:" and "From:"
  8. Use Find and Replace to replace the commas with semi-colons and tabs (^t) with a space.
    If a name and corresponding address are on different lines, backspace to remove the paragraph mark. If you aren't sure, Ctrl+Shift+8 to toggle marks on and off. Or use Find and replace to replace paragraph marks (^p) with spaces.
  9. Copy the prepared addresses. (Ctrl+A to select all, Ctrl+C to copy)

 

Create the Distribution list

These screenshots are from Outlook 2010 but the screens look similar in other versions.

Outlook 2010 and newer

  1. Open a new Contact Group form
  2. Click on Add Members in the ribbon and select either From Outlook Contacts or From Address book
    add members to a contact group
  3. Click in the Members field (at the bottom) (2 in the screenshot below)
  4. Paste (Ctrl+V) the address list into the field
  5. Click OK to add them to the Contact Group. (3 in the screenshot)
    Create a new contact group from a list of addresses
  6. Enter a name for your group in the Name field then click Save & Close.

Outlook 2007 and older
The steps to do this in the older versions of Outlook are basically the same but the labels may have changed.

  1. Open a new distribution list form
  2. Click on Select Members
  3. Click in the Members field (at the bottom)
  4. Paste (Ctrl+V) the address list into the Members field
  5. Click Ok to add the names to the DL
  6. Enter a name for your list then click Save & close.

Video Tutorial

This video tutorial shows you how to get addresses from the header of a message in your Inbox and create the distribution list.

More Information

This will work in all versions of Outlook. In older versions, paste the addresses into the Add to Distribution list box on the right side of the select names dialog. You can also do this to method create distribution lists in older versions of OWA.
Create a Contact Group from a List of Addresses was last modified: June 3rd, 2020 by Diane Poremsky

Related Posts:

  • Create a Contact Group to quickly send email to a multiple people
  • How to Forward a Contact Group
  • How to Print an Exchange Distribution List
  • One or more members of this contact group cannot be found

About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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marie (@guest_215692)
July 30, 2020 5:38 pm
#215692

do people i have added to the group have to respond that they agree to join group

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  marie
July 30, 2020 9:29 pm
#215693

No, they do not.

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Brian Mallalieu (@guest_215330)
June 3, 2020 10:23 am
#215330

Diane, your video does not follow Outlook 2016. But more so, PLEASE SPEAK MUCH SLOWER & PAUSE (to allow us to take each step in turn)! A number of us are not as expert as you are. There are sometimes no such dropdown lists with your stated words. I couldn't make it work, after I eventually managed to get to the stage of find & replace (even that is not called the same!) OK, but from then on?????

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Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Brian Mallalieu
June 3, 2020 10:38 am
#215331

With Outlook 2016, you should be able to hit Reply all, select all in the To field and paste into the Members field of a Contact Group. Repeat for the CC field. (You don't even need to hit reply - you can copy from the message header in the reading pane, but its easier to select all when you use Reply All.)
 
[but i will update the video too.]

2020-06-03_10-38-50-0000.png
2020-06-03_10-38-19-0000.png
Last edited 4 years ago by Diane Poremsky
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Peter Kennedy (@guest_214996)
April 3, 2020 2:11 am
#214996

So i just wanted a list of my customers in one place so i could email them. So I start a contact group. Select a few names and then the programs send the ones I have select some emial to say i have put them in this group.
When did i give the program permission to send an email on my behalf.
What idiot designs a program where I dont have control over when i contact people.
Now I cant find the gorup or how to get rid of it.
Why don't you do a few simple things clearly instead of trying to put all this connectedness whichg i don wnant

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Reply
Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Peter Kennedy
June 3, 2020 10:47 am
#215332

It sounds like you created a new Office group, not a Contact Group. Contact Groups are under More Items menu. In Contacts, the Contacts Group button should be on the ribbon - but so is the Group, for an Office Group.

2020-06-03_10-46-09-0000.png
2020-06-03_10-47-01-0000.png
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Georgie (@guest_213426)
June 13, 2019 5:02 pm
#213426

How do you add contact group members to address book as individual contact, but also include the contact card fields/metadata (company, department, job title, etc.) and not only the names and email address?

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Reply
jthenke@gvec.net (@guest_212577)
January 23, 2019 1:29 pm
#212577

Where do I find the 'contact group form'?

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Reply
Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  jthenke@gvec.net
January 24, 2019 9:31 pm
#212590

It depends where you are in Outlook and which ribbon - the old one or the new simplified ribbon. :) Keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+L and should work from any folder.

If you are in Contacts, it's either a button on the ribbon or at the bottom of the New Contact menu - it's New Contact Group. If you are in another folder, it's under New [item] > More Items > Contact Group.

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petrous molenga (@guest_206925)
June 2, 2017 7:31 am
#206925

i want six contact list with six email address

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Reply
Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  petrous molenga
June 2, 2017 9:34 pm
#206944

6 contacts folder, one for each of your email accounts? Are the accounts configured as pop3 or imap? If pop3, create a new folder in the data file the account is delivered to (right click on a folder, choose New folder, then select Contacts as the folder type and the folder you want as a parent folder). You can do this with imap, but the folder won't be synced or backed up and you risk losing the contacts.

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aaa (@guest_204037)
January 20, 2017 4:36 pm
#204037

Hi I am just wondering if there is a way to directly add a contact to a group without having to open group lists and so on. Many thanks

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Nikki (@guest_200170)
July 22, 2016 8:23 am
#200170

this is great for creating but I need to be able to check my entries in a contact list to make sure they are correct . W moved over from hotmail to outlook.live.com but I can find nothing to show me how to export just the contacts of a contact list - plase help

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Reply
Diane Poremsky(@diane-poremsky)
Author
Reply to  Nikki
July 22, 2016 8:36 am
#200172

see https://www.slipstick.com/tutorial/create-individual-contacts-from-a-distribution-list/ for a macro to create contacts from group members. If you just want a text list, see https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/contacts/how-to-forward-a-distribution-list/

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Reply

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