How to make a group gmail list

If you're here, I presume you're tired of typing the same email addresses over and over again and are looking for a way to streamline the sending of emails to specific groups of people such as your colleagues, family, or friends.

Well, you're at the right place! In this short post, we'll cover two topics. First, we'll create a distribution list in Google Workspace and see how you can send an email to the latter list from Gmail. Then, we'll generate an email address for this very group and ensure you get a dedicated space for conversations with its members in your Gmail inbox.

To illustrate the coming step-by-step instructions, we'll suppose Yoda wishes to create a group for all the Jedis (yes... we're fans of Star Wars at Gmelius).

Create a Distribution List in Gmail

The process is straightforward and requires just three steps.

Step 1: Open Google Contacts

Yoda needs to go to his list of contacts by opening Google Contacts. From Gmail, Google Contacts can be accessed by clicking the dots, on the top-right menu, and then choosing “Contacts” as shown below.

Step 2: Create a Google Contact Label

Once in Google Contacts, the second step is to create a label for the future distribution list, e.g., "Team", "Family", "Friends". In our case, Yoda creates a label "Jedis". Once the label created, he selects all the Jedis/contacts he wishes to add to the new label.

Step 3: Use the new List in Gmail

The final step is to go back to Gmail, and start typing the group's name you chose as a label. All the emails part of the label (distribution list) will then be populated and instantly appear in the Gmail compose window. For our good old friend Yoda, this will look like this:

And voilà! Now, feel free to repeat the same steps as many times as needed if you wish to create additional distribution lists.

Create a Group Email in Gmail

We made it easy to send emails to specific groups of people in Gmail. Now, we'll ensure to have a specific space in the inbox that regroups all the incoming conversations we have with our newly created list. The process is again made of three steps.

Step 1: Create a Google Group

This time, Yoda needs to access his Google Groups. Once there, the next step is to create a Google Group for his Jedis . There are three screens. On the first screen, it's important to make sure that the group email address is simple  to remember.

On the second screen, the key configuration point is to have "Who can post" set to "Anyone on the web" as shown below:

On the third and final screen, we just have to add all the members of the group.

Done, the Google Group is configured and live. Now, we need to convert it into a Gmail shared inbox.

Step 2: Create a Shared Inbox

To do so, head to https://gmelius.com/download/extension and install the Gmelius extension for your browser. Once signed up, you'll see the Gmelius onboarding. We want to create a "Team Inbox" from a Google Group, and we so enter the email address of our newly created group when invited to do so. The steps are detailed below:

Gmelius will then convert the Google Group into a Gmail shared inbox. The last step of the configuration is to invite the same members of your existing Google Group to the Gmelius shared inbox.

Step 3: Reload Gmail

Finally, go back to Gmail. You'll see a new section for your Group on the left-side nav bar of your inbox where you'll be able to view, comment and delegate conversations between members of your group.

Interested in learning more about collaborative inboxes in Gmail? Check out our page about Gmail Shared Inboxes.

• You can create a group email in Gmail using the label tool in Google's Contacts page.
• After you create a label with multiple emails, you can add that label to the addressee line in any email message. 
• If you are sending an email to a group of people, it's considered a common courtesy to use the "Bcc" line to hide the email addresses. 

You can easily create a group email in Gmail (sometimes called mailing lists or distribution lists) and send an email to those contacts with just a couple of clicks. This is convenient because you don't have to manually add a lot of names in the "To" line of an email every time you need to send a message.

Unfortunately, the process isn't obvious, so you might not have been able to figure out the steps on your own.

How to create an email group in Contacts 

To send a group email, you need to begin by creating the email group using a label in Google's Contacts. Once you create a label, though, adding all the contacts in the label to the email is simple. 

1. Open Google Contacts in a web browser.

2. Hover your cursor over the first contact you want to include in your group, and then click the checkbox to the left of the name when it appears. 

3. Check the name of every contact you want to include in the group. 

4. When you're done, click the "Manage labels" button at the top of the page. It's shaped like a label and is right next to the "Send email" button. 

5. In the dropdown menu, click "Create label."

6. Enter a name for your email group label and click "Save."

How to create a group email in Gmail

1. Open Gmail in a browser. If Gmail was already open in another browser tab, refresh the page.

2. Click "Compose."

3. There are two ways to add your email group to this email message. If you remember the name of the label you just created, enter its name in the "To" line. When you see it appear as a suggestion, click it, and all the members you added to the label will appear. If you don't want to type it, click "To" and, in the pop-up window, click "My contacts." Then click the name of the label from the list.

4. The group should now be in the email's "To" line, and you can create and send the email as usual.

If you are sending the email to a group of people who are not close friends, family, or coworkers, it's common email etiquette to put the email addresses on the "Bcc" line rather than the "To" line, so everyone's email address isn't publicly shared. 

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

• How to clear your Gmail cache to fix issues and make the email client run more efficiently

• How to change your Gmail inbox display in a variety of ways using the 'quick settings' menu

• How to install add-ons to your Gmail account in a desktop web browser, and streamline your workflow

• How to recover deleted emails in Gmail and move them back to your inbox on a computer or mobile device

• How to get rid of the Google Meet function in the Gmail mobile app and remove the video-chat icon from your inbox

Dave Johnson

Freelance Writer

Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.

Read more Read less

How do I create an email group list?

Can you create groups of Contacts in Gmail?

How do I create a mailing list in Gmail 2022?

How do I create a group list of Contacts?