Email group means three different things in Outlook. A contact list is a personal shortcut that expands into individual addresses when you send. A Microsoft 365 group is a group mailbox with a shared workspace. A distribution list is an organization-wide address an admin creates. Which one you want depends on whether other people need to send to the group, and whether anyone has to reply.
For a personal group only you send to: open People, select a contact, and choose Add to list > New contact list (New Contact Group in classic Outlook). For an address the whole company can mail, ask an admin for a distribution list in the Exchange admin center. Or create a Microsoft 365 group from the Groups icon > New Group. A group that must answer customers from one address is a shared mailbox job; see shared mailbox vs distribution list.
How do you create an email group in Outlook?
Start by picking the type, because the three are created in different places and cannot be converted into each other.
| Contact list (contact group) | Microsoft 365 group | Distribution list | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who can send to it | Only you; it lives in your contacts | Anyone in the organization, and outside senders if allowed | Anyone in the organization, and outside senders if allowed |
| Where messages go | Each recipient's Inbox, as individual addresses | The group mailbox, plus subscribers' Inboxes | Each member's own Inbox |
| Created by | You, in Outlook | You, in Outlook, if your admin allows it | An admin, in the Exchange admin center |
| Comes with | Nothing else | A SharePoint site, Planner, a calendar, optional Teams | An address in the global address list |
| Best for | A list you mail regularly from your own account | A team or project that also needs files and meetings | Company-wide or department announcements |
Create a contact list (contact group) in Outlook
A contact list, which classic Outlook calls a contact group and older versions called a personal distribution list, is stored in your own contacts. When you put it on the To line, Outlook expands it into the individual addresses. Each recipient then counts separately toward the 10,000 recipients per day a mailbox can send to.
Steps verified October 2026 on Create, edit, or delete a contact list or contact group in Outlook and Create a contact list in Outlook for Mac.
New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web
- Open People from the side panel.
- Select a contact, then choose Add to list, from the right-click menu or the ribbon, and select New contact list.
- Name the list and add more contacts. To edit later, open People, select All contact lists, and choose Edit; Delete removes the list and keeps the contacts.
Classic Outlook for Windows
- Open People from the side panel and select New Contact Group on the ribbon.
- Enter a name, select Add Members, and pick from your contacts, the address book, or a typed address.
- Select Save & Close. To change it, double-click the group and use Add Members or Remove Member.
Outlook for Mac
- Open People and choose New Contact List.
- Select Add, type each name or address, and add any other contact lists you want nested.
- Select Save & Close. To use it, start a New Email and type the list's name on the To line.
Contact lists are personal. If a colleague needs the same list, they build their own, and when a member changes, every copy has to change. That maintenance is the signal to move to one of the two shared types.
Create a Microsoft 365 group in Outlook
A Microsoft 365 group is a membership that provisions a group mailbox, a SharePoint site, a Planner plan and a calendar together, and can be connected to Microsoft Teams. Members read group mail as conversations in the group mailbox and can subscribe to receive copies in their own Inbox. Steps verified October 2026 on Create a group in Outlook.
New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web
- Select the Groups icon in the App bar on the side of the window, or Go to Groups in the folder list.
- Select New Group on the ribbon, then New Group in the dropdown.
- Enter a Name and Description, and on the web an Email address and Privacy setting, then select Create.
- Add members when prompted, or select Not now.
Classic Outlook for Windows
- Select Home > New Group, or the Groups icon in the App bar.
- Enter the Group name. Once chosen it cannot be changed, and Not available next to the suggested address means the name is taken.
- Add a Description (it appears in the welcome email), pick a Classification if your organization uses them, and set Privacy. Groups default to Private, meaning only approved members can see the content.
- Decide whether to send all group conversations and events to members' inboxes, then select Create.
Outlook for Mac
Creating a group is documented for legacy Outlook for Mac only, under File > New > Group. Microsoft states that support for legacy Outlook for Mac ends in October 2026. On new Outlook for Mac, create the group from Outlook on the web instead.
If New Group is missing, either your account is not on a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription or your IT team has not enabled Microsoft 365 Groups. Admins can create groups centrally under Teams & groups > Active teams & groups > Add Microsoft 365 group. The wizard also sets owners, who are the only members able to delete mail from the group inbox.
Create a distribution list (Exchange admin center)
A distribution list is created by an admin, and the word Outlook in the search is a hint about where people expect to find it. It lives in Exchange, appears in the global address list, and delivers a copy of each message to every member's Inbox.
It is the right choice for announcements, because Exchange Online counts a list in the address book as a single recipient toward the daily rate limit. Steps verified October 2026 on Create and manage distribution groups.
- In the Exchange admin center, go to Recipients > Groups > Distribution list and select Add a group.
- Choose Distribution as the group type and select Next, then follow the wizard: name, description, at least one owner, members, and the email address.
- On the review page select Create group, then Close.
- In the group's Settings tab, Delivery management decides whether outside senders can mail it; the default is inside the organization only. Manage delegates grants Send As or Send on Behalf to people who should reply from the list's address.
In PowerShell: New-DistributionGroup -Name 'IT Administrators' -Alias itadmin -MemberJoinRestriction open, which creates a list anyone can join without approval. Everything a member receives is their own copy; the list keeps nothing and has no Sent Items.
When a team should use a shared mailbox or a shared inbox instead
Each of the three groups above is built for sending to people. None is built for a team answering people. Say customers write to sales@ and a distribution list fans the message out to five account managers. Each copy is private, nobody can see whether a colleague has replied, and the list has no record either way. The result is two replies or none.
For that job, Microsoft's answer is a shared mailbox: one Inbox several people open, replies sent from the shared address, and one history. It is scoped to a front desk, so it has no owner field and no notes, and its useful settings are per-mailbox changes an admin makes.
The comparison with distribution lists and groups is in shared mailbox vs distribution list vs Microsoft 365 group. Creation is in how to create a shared mailbox in Microsoft 365. Opening it on every device is in how to add a shared mailbox in Outlook.
We build Sektra, a separate shared inbox workspace that syncs two-way with Outlook and Microsoft 365 shared mailboxes. Mail stays in Microsoft 365. Every thread gains an owner, internal notes and a typing indicator that reads 'A teammate is typing a reply'. The memory layer is the record Sektra builds per contact of commitments made and questions left open. Outlook connects through Microsoft sign-in, and Sektra never sees that password.
The Outlook integration page explains the setup. Sales teams have a page at Sektra for sales; their group addresses carry inbound leads that go cold when nobody owns them. The longer argument is in where an Outlook shared mailbox stops.
