How to Add Several Contacts to a Gmail Group at Once

Gmail makes it easy to send group emails to multiple addresses at once. Learn how to add more people to an existing group, how to add recipients to a contacts list, and how to send an email to a group using the desktop (web browser) version of Gmail.

Add Recipients to a Gmail Group

Follow these steps to add existing Google contacts to a Gmail group:

1. Open Gmail. In the upper-right corner, next to your avatar, select the Google apps (square grid of nine dots) icon. From the list, choose Contacts.

   If you don't see Contacts, select More to view additional choices.

   

2. In your Contacts, hover over the avatar (or circled initial for people you don't have a photo for) in front of each contact's name that you want to add to a group. A check box is revealed. Select the box to place a check mark in it.

   

3. At the top of the list, several new icons appear. Select the Manage labels (right-facing arrow) icon.

   

4. From the list, choose the group or label you'd like to add the contacts to. At the bottom of the list, select Apply.

   If the group doesn't exist, select Create label in the Manage labels list. In the Create label dialog box, enter a label name and select Save.

5. You can check your work by selecting the appropriate label in the left pane. The contacts you added to the group should now appear in it.

Add New Recipients to Your Contacts List

If the recipients aren't on your Contacts list, the process takes a little longer because you must add them as contacts before you can add them to a group. There are a couple of ways to add a new contact.

1. The fastest way to add new contact is by hovering over a name in an email and selecting More Info in the contact card.

   

2. In the sidebar that appears, choose the Add to Contacts button. Repeat for each new contact you want to add.

   

3. When you select Create contact, you're given two options: Create a contact and Create multiple contacts.

   If you choose the first one, the new window that appears is called Create a new contact. The second option is ideal if you need to add several contacts at once, either by typing them or importing them from a file.

   

4. Use the steps in the 'Add Recipients to a Gmail Group' section, above, to add the new contacts to a group.

   You can add contacts to a group individually by selecting the More actions (three-dot) icon next to their name and choosing the appropriate group from the drop-down list.

Send an Email to a Group

Now that you have your groups the way you want them, here's how to send an email to one of them:

1. In Gmail, in the upper-left corner, select Compose. In the New Message box, select To.

   

2. In the Select contacts box, to the right and above the list of names, select the drop-down menu. Choose the group you want to send the email to.

   

3. A list of the contacts in that group appears. At the top of the dialog box, check Select All. At the bottom of the dialog box, select Insert.

   

4. All the names in the group appear in the To field of your message. Compose your subject and message. Select Send.

   If your group is composed of people who don't know each other, or who you don't know well, place their addresses into the Bcc field rather than the To field. This action prevents recipients from seeing each other's email addresses. To do it, select Bcc instead of To and go through the same steps. Then, in the To field, enter your email address and send the email.