How do you import contacts into a group in Outlook?

So just to be clear:

There is no way to take a spreadsheet of, for example, 77 people and import them into a group that has been created, correct? From what I am seeing, I have to move them into the group after they're in the system.

I hope this will be addressed and the process developed for the import to go to a group if selected. I am not the only person who needs to use groups to send bulk emails, and find it an time-drain to have to stop and select the 77 people, make sure they are the only ones I've selected from my list of hundreds of contacts, and move them into a group.

Probably like you Nancy, I spent many hours trying to find a way to do this and eventually stumbled across this:

https://covve.com/how-to/how-to-import-a-contact-group-to-outlook/

You can add a folder into which you can import your mailing list. The Outlook graphics aren't quite the same so go to People, then the Folder tab, click on New Folder. Give your folder a Name and then select where to place the folder - which would be the Contacts folder shown in the drop down list. And so on. You can then presumably create a new folder for each mailing list.

I did find a different way, not so sure about creating separate folders for each contact group. On my import I created column named "Categories". For each contact I entered the "group" I wanted the contact to belong to. For contacts belonging to multiple groups I separated the Category with a semicolon, "Group1;Group2". After importing you can now group by Category. I then highlight all contacts in a group and do a Ctl-C (copy). I then added a Contact Group, named it, and Added members from "Address Book". Select the box at the bottom for "Members" and Ctl-V (paste). This will add all the copied addresses into this line. Scroll to the top of the list and remove the "Header Line" : "Full Name Email Primary Phone Categories File As ". After that click OK and you have populated that email group. I found that errors were created if contacts did not have an email address, but was able to removed them and click OK again. Far easier than selecting all of the individuals one at a time to add them.

Hi @TSDWC Office,

Is the "existing contact list" kept in an Excel spreadsheet?
By "Outlook Group", are you referring to the "Contact Group" in Outlook which is used to send an email to multiple people?

If both the above are true, then you can import the contacts list straight into Outlook first by following Import contacts to Outlook, then you would be able to create a contact group or add members into a contact group using the imported contact information.

1. Double-click the contact group that you want to add members to.
2. Click Add Members > From Outlook Contacts, from there you can bulk select multiple contacts at once by holding down CTRL or SHIFT key.
3. Add them to the Members box, and then click OK.
4. Click Save and Close.

Feel free to let me know if I have misunderstood anything.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.