How to Pick Recipients From Your Address Book in Gmail

Use your Gmail contacts list to quickly send messages

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by Heinz Tschabitscher
An independent writer who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
Updated September 02, 2019

Gmail makes it easy to select a contact to email. As you type an email address in a message, Gmail auto-suggests the name and email address. However, there's another way to pick which contacts to email, and it's by using your address book. Using a contact list to pick the recipients of an email is helpful when adding several people to the email. Select as many recipients and groups as you like, then add them to the email to compose a message to those contacts.

Instructions in this article apply to the web version of Gmail.

How to Hand-Pick Recipients to Email in Gmail

Start with a new message, or reply or forward an existing message.

  1. In the message window, select either To, Cc, or Bcc, depending on how you want to send the message to the recipients.

    To field in Gmail on the web

  2. In the Select contacts window, choose the recipients to include in the email. Scroll through your address book to select contacts or use the search box.

    Select contacts window in Gmail

    To remove a contact, clear the check box next to the entry.

  3. Select Insert when you're done.

    Insert contacts button in Gmail

  4. Compose the email.

    Send button in Gmail

  5. Send it when you're ready.