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One contact group, four Outlook apps. Set it up once and reach the whole list in seconds, on Windows, Mac, the web, and New Outlook for 365.
by Alkan Balkaya · Last updated: 2026-10-05To create a group email in Outlook, open People, click New contact group, name it, Add Members, Save & Close. Then start a new message and type the group name in the To field to email everyone at once. The exact clicks differ slightly across Windows, Mac, the web, and New Outlook for 365.
A contact group (also called a distribution list) is a saved collection of email addresses under one name. Build it once and you never have to add recipients one by one again. This guide walks each Outlook app step by step and shows which method fits your version.
New here? Start with our primer on Email Platform Comparisons for the fundamentals, then come back to this guide.
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Key Takeaways
Open People (the contacts area), create a New contact group, give it a name, choose Add Members, pick the people you want, then Save & Close. That single reusable group becomes a shortcut: type its name in the To field of any new message and Outlook expands it to every address inside.
The term you choose does not change the process. “Contact group,” “distribution list,” and “email group” all refer to the same saved bundle of addresses. Microsoft renamed distribution lists to contact groups years ago, but older menus and many users still say distribution list, so you will see both words across the apps below.
One important limit shapes everything else. A personal contact group can hold a large number of addresses, but your mailbox still enforces a per-message recipient cap. Most Microsoft 365 plans allow a maximum of 500 recipients on any single message, so a 2,000-person group will not send in one click from Outlook alone.
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In classic Outlook for Windows, open the People view, select Home, then click New Contact Group. Name the group, choose Add Members, pick From Outlook Contacts or From Address Book, double-click each person to add them, then click Save & Close. The group appears in your contacts list, ready to use.
To send to it, open a new email and start typing the group name in the To field. Outlook offers the group as a suggestion; select it and the name sits in the recipient line. If you want to see or trim the members before sending, click the plus icon beside the group name to expand it into individual addresses.
If you plan to send newsletters or track who opens them, Outlook groups will feel thin. For the full walkthrough of larger sends and merge fields, see our guide on how to send mass email in Outlook, which covers volume limits, personalization, and the add-ins that extend what the desktop app can do on its own.
In Outlook for Mac, switch to the People view, then click New Contact List in the toolbar. Give the list a name, type or paste the email addresses into the Add an email field, and click Save. Outlook for Mac calls the feature a contact list rather than a contact group, but it behaves the same way.
One difference worth noting: the newer Outlook for Mac interface ties contact lists to the account you are signed into. If you keep both a personal and a work account, make sure you create the list under the correct identity so the addresses pull from the right address book. After saving, type the list name in a new message to send to everyone.
In Outlook on the web (outlook.com or Microsoft 365 webmail), open the People app from the left sidebar, select the New contacts dropdown, and choose New contact list. Name the list, add each email address, and click Create. You can then email the whole list by typing its name in the To field of a new message.
The web version separates two things that confuse people. A contact list is your own private bundle of addresses, created in the People app. A Microsoft 365 Group is a shared workspace with its own inbox, calendar, and files, created by your organization. For a simple group email, you want the contact list, not the 365 Group.
If you manage several lists and want to reuse personalized fields across them, mail merge tools do the heavy lifting. Our roundup of the best Outlook mail merge add-ins explains which options handle large contact lists, insert first names automatically, and stay inside Microsoft’s recipient limits without flagging your account.
In New Outlook for Windows and Outlook 365, open People from the left rail, click New contact list, name it, add members, and save. New Outlook dropped the classic “New Contact Group” wording in favor of “contact list,” but the result is the same reusable group you type into the To line.
Yes, you can still send to a distribution list in New Outlook. If your organization published a distribution list in the global address book, start a new message and type its name; it resolves just like any shared address. Personal contact lists you create yourself autocomplete too, so both company lists and your own groups work side by side.
New Outlook is still catching up to the classic desktop app on a handful of advanced features, so if a contact group option looks missing, toggle back to classic Outlook using the switch in the top right corner. Any groups you create in either mode sync to the same account and stay available in both.
Use classic Outlook for Windows or Mac if you want the fullest contact group controls; use the web or New Outlook for quick lists on any device. All three methods create the same reusable group, so the right choice is simply whichever Outlook you already have open. The table below maps the exact button names.
| Outlook app | Where to click | Feature name |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Windows & Mac | People → Home / toolbar | New Contact Group / New Contact List |
| Outlook on the web | People → New contacts dropdown | New contact list |
| New Outlook / 365 | People → left rail | New contact list |
Move beyond Outlook groups the moment you need to email more than a few dozen people, personalize at scale, or see who opened and clicked. Contact groups are perfect for a small team or a recurring internal update, but they hit a wall at list growth, deliverability, and reporting, the three things a newsletter or outreach campaign depends on.
Outlook has no built-in unsubscribe handling, no open tracking, and a 500-recipient message cap on most Microsoft 365 plans. Send one large blast from a contact group and you risk your mailbox reputation, which can push future mail to spam. A dedicated platform separates marketing sends from your personal mailbox and keeps your main address clean.
Mailsoftly is built for exactly that handoff. You import your contacts, segment them into lists, personalize with merge fields, and send with unsubscribe links and open tracking handled automatically. The free plan covers 500 contacts and 2,000 emails per month, and you can review every tier on our transparent pricing page before you commit a single dollar.
For the broader picture on this topic, see our complete Email Platform Comparisons guide, which covers strategy, fundamentals, and advanced playbooks.
A personal contact group can hold a large number of addresses, often several hundred, but the real limit is your sending cap, not the group size. Most Microsoft 365 mailboxes allow a maximum of 500 recipients per single message, so a group larger than that will not send in one click.
Yes. New Outlook resolves both organization distribution lists and your own personal contact lists. Start a new message and type the list name in the To field; it autocompletes and expands to every member when you send, exactly as it does in classic Outlook.
A contact group is your private, reusable list of email addresses for sending mail. A Microsoft 365 Group is a shared workspace created by your organization with its own inbox, calendar, and files. For a simple group email, use a contact group or contact list, not a 365 Group.
Large sends from a personal mailbox trigger spam filters because Outlook has no unsubscribe handling, list hygiene, or sending reputation built for bulk mail. Splitting one blast across many recipients also looks suspicious. A dedicated email platform with authentication and unsubscribe links keeps your messages out of the spam folder.
Yes. Open People, double-click the group or list to open it, choose Add Members (or type a new address into the add field), then save. The updated group applies to every future message, so you never rebuild it from scratch when your list grows.
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