Here’s how to make Outlook Contact Groups work with both CC and BCC’s as well.
Outlook Contact Groups are a way to combine a list of contacts under a single name. They are often used in business but are also useful for individuals or families. For example groups like: ‘Regional Managers’, ‘Branch Staff’, ‘Neighbours’, ‘Club members’ etc.
In this example we have a list of favorite bookmakers, known in some circles as turf accountants or bookies.
Contact Groups make sending out an email easy. Instead of entering all the names in the TO box, just type in the Group name instead.
Contact Group Limitation
The problem with Contact Groups is they are limited to a single mail field only, usually the TO field. That’s how it works in Microsoft demos and training but the Real World is more complicated.
Often broadcast emails go to three groups:
TO: the main recipients, visible to all.
CC: secondary recipients, also visible to all.
BCC: people who get the email but recipients don’t know that, the ‘Blind Carbon Copy’.
Contact Groups have no way to handle that, it’s a single group only.
Ideally, Microsoft would make a Contact Group with TO, CC and BCC combined but that’s not likely any time soon (Microsoft, please prove us wrong).
The CC and BCC Group workaround
The fix is fairly simple, make three Groups with similar names. One for the main or TO recipients plus others for CC and BCC.
Note: a little sorting trick. The CC group has a space between the colon and ‘CC’. That puts the CC entry above the BCC version.
Sending emails
Now you have three groups, sending a mass email is a lot faster. Just type the group names into the three mail fields.
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