How to Create Email Groups in Gmail

Email groups help you keep your teammates and acquaintances in the loop and improve collaboration. It's a simple yet effective concept that boosts communication within an organization. You've arrived at the right place to learn about email groups and how to create them in Gmail.

Why should I create groups in Gmail?

Creating groups makes it easier to perform frequent exchange with multiple cohorts of contacts.
It allows you to segment your large audience and send more targeted messages to each segment.
It helps you stay in touch with friends, family, and other social circles.
It saves time and effort that you would otherwise spend manually typing email addresses when you want to send a message to multiple recipients.

How to create email groups in Gmail

Follow these steps to create a group in Gmail:

1. Open Google Contacts

The first step is to open the Google Contacts website or app. You can visit contacts.google.com or install the Google Contacts app on your iOS or Android device.

After opening the site or app, you'll see a list of all your contacts. If you don't have any saved contacts, click the "Frequent" menu to see the list of the addresses you message most frequently.

2. Choose the contacts to add to a group

Hover your mouse on any contact, and a checkbox appears on the left-hand side. You can click the checkbox next to each contact you want to add to a new group. Use the search bar to look for specific contacts and mark their checkboxes.

3. Create a new group label

Click the Manage labels button in the upper-right corner and select Create label.

This button opens a new window for you to type your group's name: to illustrate, we'll use the name "Test". From henceforth, you can start sending emails to this specific group.

Adding a new contact to an existing group is easy:

1. Head back to Google Contacts.

2. Select the contact(s) you want to add.

3. Click Manage labels and select the group label you created earlier — the selected contacts will be instantly added to that group.

Google Contacts is linked to your Gmail account and other Google apps. Hence, after creating a group on Google Contacts, you can start sending messages to that group on Gmail.

How to send group emails in Gmail

Here's how to create a group email in Gmail:

1. Compose a new message

Open Gmail and click on the Compose button to open a new message. This button is at the desktop view's top-left corner and the mobile app's bottom-right corner.

2. Enter the group name in the "To" field

In the "To" field, you type the address(es) to which you want to send a message. Type and select the name of your group. This action will add all addresses in the group as individual recipients.

3. Write the email body

Type in the body of your message and include any attachments you want to send to the group. Then, click the Send button and wait for confirmation. Once confirmed, be assured that everyone in the group will get your message if they have valid addresses.

Managing contacts for Gmail groups

Knowing how to create a group in Gmail from an email contact list is not enough. You also need to learn about managing contacts for existing groups, i.e., creating, importing, and deleting contacts. Let's dive deeper into these procedures below.

Creating or importing contacts to an email group

You can create a new contact or import an existing one to a group at any time. To create a new contact, follow these steps:

1. Open Google Contacts.

2. Click the Create Contact button at the top-left corner > Create a Contact or Create multiple contacts.

3. Type in the new contact details, including Name, Email, Phone number, and other relevant information. On the same page, you'll see a "+ Label" button. Click this button to save the new contact(s) to an existing group label.

To add an existing contact to a group:

1. Scroll through your Contacts list and mark the checkboxes next to each contact you want to add. You can also search for specific contacts and mark them.

2. Select Manage labels and choose the group label to which you want to add the contacts. They'll be instantly added to the group.

To import contacts:

1. Click on the Import button on the left menu.

2. Upload the file with the contacts, and Google Contacts will automatically extract the information to add the new contacts.

Follow the steps described earlier to add imported contacts to a group label.

Adding contacts from your frequently contacted list

Google Contacts takes note of the email addresses you message most frequently and sorts them into a separate list. You can open this list anytime and add your frequent contacts to a group.

1. Click on the Frequent menu on the left-hand side.

2. Mark the checkboxes next to any contacts on your Frequent list.

3. Click the Manage labels button and select the group label to add the contacts.

Adding contacts from your organizational directory

If you're using Gmail as part of a corporate Google Workspace subscription, Google maintains an organizational directory listing the email addresses of all people in your company. Corporate users will see a "Directory" menu on their Google Contacts dashboard.

Click on the Directory menu.
Mark the checkboxes next to the email addresses you want to add to a group.
Click on Manage labels and select the group to which to add the addresses.

The process is very similar to adding typical contacts to a new group.

Removing contacts from email groups

1. Open the specific group label to see the complete list of contacts in that group.

2. Click the More Actions button (three vertical dots) next to the contact you want to remove.

3. Click Remove from label.

4. Alternatively, you can select multiple contacts, click the More Actions button at the top, and then click Remove from label to clear multiple contacts simultaneously.

Conclusion

Gmail groups help you save time and effort. Grouping enables you to segment your contact list and send targeted messages to each group when required. You don't need to waste time memorizing and typing multiple addresses. Instead, you can group them and simply send a message to the entire group.

We've shown the way to create a group in Gmail on Mac and Windows desktops or the iOS and Android mobile apps. We've also explained managing groups effectively: adding, removing, and importing contacts. Follow our tips, and you'll likely improve the efficiency of your email communications.