If you find your email program doesn’t allow you to create contact groups, there may be a workaround. For example, you can’t create groups on an iPhone or iPad, but you can do so via the iCloud website. You might also find that, while you can create a group of contacts (as with iCloud) but you can’t then select the group when sending an email. For small numbers of people, it might be faster to type the first few characters of their name and use your email application’s auto-complete function to select their address. When you need to email a large number of people regularly, this method is unworkable, as it takes too long and you might miss people off the list. Step 1. In Gmail, click the Gmail drop-down menu and switch to Contacts. Now click the New group… link in the left-hand menu and enter a name for the group.
Step 2. The new group will appear under Contacts in the left-hand menu. Click on its name, then click the Add to group button (the head icon with a +). In the box, start typing a contact’s name and then select the correct email address from the list.
Step 3. When you click on a contact’s email address, you can begin typing the next person’s name. When you have added everyone, click the Add button at the bottom of the box.
Step 4. Now use the drop-down menu to switch back from Contacts to Gmail and click the red Compose button. Type the first few letters of your group name and it should auto-complete. Click on it to add all the people in the group to the list of recipients. You may want to remind people to click the Reply to all button if you want responses to be seen by the whole group. Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.
