How to create a mailing list and group emails in Gmail

Emails are not always a one-on-one affair. Sometimes it’s necessary to bring other people into the discussion, and Gmail makes this very easy. However, these days, with the rise of Slack, Asana, and other collaboration apps, group emailing is beginning to go out of vogue. Nevertheless, if you’re holding on for dear life to the old ways, here’s how to create a mailing list in Gmail, as well as group emails.

Also: 10 best email apps for Android to manage your inbox

How to send group email in Gmail without showing addresses

If it’s just a few email addresses you need to add to an email, it’s faster to just manually type them in. You can do this by first opening up the BCC field in the email. Entering the email addresses as BCC means that Gmail won’t reveal them to the other email recipients. Type in each address, separated by a space.

Alternatively, if you don’t know all of the email addresses from memory, click Bcc on the top left-hand side, and it opens up your Google Contacts. Tick the people you want to add to the email.

How to add contacts to a Gmail group

If there’s a group of people you email regularly, you can make a kind of mailing list inside Google Contacts. Then when you want to email that group of people, type the list’s name into the email window. It’s a huge timesaver, and you can add or remove people from the list as and when necessary.

Gmail calls this mailing list feature contact labels. This is because all you’re essentially doing is setting up a label in Contacts and attaching people’s email addresses to that label. The label is then the “mailing list,” and you type the label’s name into your email window.

• In Contacts, on the left-hand side, click on (+) beside Labels.
• You’ll then be prompted to name your label. I decided on Work Colleagues.
• Click Save, and you’ll now see your new label appear under Labels in the sidebar.

• Now select the contacts you want to add to that label by ticking the boxes next to them.
• At the top of the screen, to the left of the envelope icon, is the icon to add the contacts to a label. Click that and select the label you want to add the contacts to.
• Click Apply to save your changes and then click on the label in the sidebar to ensure the contacts are all there.

Now when you send an email to that group, type the label’s name into the Gmail window, and it will auto-populate with all the email addresses.

How to edit email groups in Gmail

Once you have your email group set up in Gmail, you can easily edit it — whether you want to delete someone or update their details.

• Go to the group in Google Contacts and mouse over the contact you wish to edit. A small checkbox will appear to the left of the name. Click it.
• On the far right of the contact, you will see a three-dot icon, as well as a pencil icon. The pencil icon will allow you to update the contact’s details, and the three-dot menu icon will drop down a menu. This menu has the option to remove the contact from the group, change groups, and others.

Read more: How to add a signature in Gmail

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