Important notice about sending grouped emails to people that do not necessarily know each others: ALWAYS put the recipients in the Bcc field (Blind Carbon Copy)*, not the To or Cc field, as all the recipients will see the names and email adresses of the other recipients and that is breaking Right to Privacy Laws in most countries, including here in the E.U. Seriously, I know someone who has been caught and fined an hefty penalty fee for doing so. (*) put yourself in the main recipient field (TO).
Something else I found useful was grouping all of my work contacts that I communicate with daily, so that I could easily add them to a custom ‘focus’ mode that allowed notifications from those people. Helps me stay focused during the day without missing important notifications.
Excellent, as always! I apparently am one of the few who find groups very helpful for sending out emails to specific groups. I was fascinated to see that you were able to type the name of the group into the “To:” field of the Mac email app, as I had never been successful in attempting that. When I tried to duplicate what you did in the video, I discovered that I was able to do it with regular groups, but not with Smart Groups. The work around is that I am able to open the Contacts app on my Mac and right-click on a Smart Group and then select “Send Email to (the name of the group)”.
On iPadOS 16 & iOS 16, there is the ability to add a "List" and it has also changed from "Group" to "List" in MacOS Ventura, so it looks like we are finally going to be able to add this sorting feature on the mobile devices as well. Super informative video though, I've been on Apple/Macintosh for 42 years now and never knew this feature existed. Good lookin' out Gary!
I did learn something. But I appreciated your comments at the end (if you do not use groups, don't worry about it.) I don't use groups since a lot of my mass mailings have email addresses I don't need or want in my Contacts. Instead, I use a document in Notes or Pages, and type the addresses on those pages separated by commas. Then when I want them, I just copy & past the grouping of addresses from a document in Notes or Pages. Now I don't sound like a dodo for not using Contact groups and using my own method.
I use groups a lot. It’s so convenient when looking for close friends, work related contacts, family info, a business, medical offices etc without searching through the whole list. My biggest complaint is that if I save a contact that results from a phone call or a text I can’t assign it to its appropriate group right away. I have to find and edit it later on the Mac.
I followed the video, and tried to drag contacts into the group, but the drag and drop refused to work. I let go of the mouse button when the drag icon is over the relevant Group name, and that icon shoots across back to where I dragged it from. I think it's a weird glitch with my computer, it has worked before, and your content is always very infomative.
Thanks Gary. Great presentation as usual. I have one question regarding Contacts; all of a sudden I found myself with a LOT OF DUPLICATE CONTACTS. A LOT. I know I can go and merge them one at the time etc. but it’s a lot of work. CAN YOU HELP ME and show a faster way? And what can I do in order to avoid and/or stop this from happening again. I would greatly appreciate this. Thank you. Biagio BISIGNANO ❤️
A lot of times this has to do with having multiple accounts in the Contacts app, like an iCloud account and a Google account. You've got the same contacts in both and then you see two. Make sure you understand which accounts you have there and where the contacts are. Then add to that old-fashioned syncing to iPhone/iPad and you can quickly duplicate contacts as they sync from one account to another. It can get complex. If you can't figure out what is going on, get an expert to take a firsthand look at what you have going on.
Hi Gary, thanks for all your super spot on videos. Using OS 13.6.1 on my 2017 iMac, and OS 12.7.1 on my 2015 Macbook Pro, I cannot drag contacts into any group on either computer. This is when trying to drag contacts from All Contacts or iCloud Contacts. They are not smart groups. I have just tried creating a new test group on each computer (again, not Smart groups) but still can't drag contacts into the new test group. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Try restarting Contacts and then restarting your Mac if that doesn't work. Perhaps the contact you are dragging is in an account that doesn't support this?
I am on MacOS Ventura 13.6.7 and thanks for the note re " List" not "Groups" however I have no luck creating these lists , as I drag names to the List and they don't drop into the list ??
I tried the "Pick From Multiple Email Addresses" but it still uses the first email addresses in each contact list. Why is this if I've asked it to use a different email address in the "Edit Distribution List"? It still shows check marks to the email address I don't want to send it to.
My mum has a problem: an email group with 18 people only mails to 17 people; one of her friends is consistently left out. She’s tried taking her friend off the group and then adding her again, but that did not solve the issue
Make sure you aren't using a different cloud system (like Google) or adding contacts to the local "On My Mac" section. If you are sure that contacts are going to iCloud but still not syncing, call Apple and get it sorted out as this should work without any effort.
Gary - please help! I have Sonoma 14.5 and have hundreds of contacts, NONE of which originated in Google or Yahoo, etc. Since I upgraded to a newer Mac in 2022, it's been a NIGHTMARE to add one existing contact to an existing group or to delete one contact from a group. It used to be exactly like you say in your video, but not now. The drag and drop method of ADDING an existing contact to an existing group ONLY WORKS for me now when I quit Contacts and then reopen Contacts EACH TIME - meaning I can only add ONE contact and then have to QUIT Contacts, REOPEN Contacts, and then add one MORE contact, etc. That's a pain to do, but at least it's do-able. But NOTHING works to DELETE a contact from an existing group. I USED to have all the features you showed in your video on my older version so I could choose between deleting the card/contact from "just this group" or "delete the card entirely," but now I don't. When I right click on the contact name inside the group, my choices are Share, Export vCard, Edit Card, Delete Card, and Spotlight. I don't have the option any more to delete the contact "ONLY from this particular group." Please help! Suggestions???
I have created a new “list” (that’s what it’s called on my MacBook anyway) and even though I loaded 8 names on the list it will only send email to 4 names. I have tried various things but no joy. All 8 names show up within the list. Any ideas?
@@macmost followed your advice and discovered that some of the names on my list didn’t have the email address defined. They showed that Siri was suggesting the address. I edited each card by entering the addresses and the problem is now solved. Thanks very much for the help and the many useful videos that you produce.
I’ve tried to use groups in the past, gave up and use my PC now. We have multiple properties and use groups to send emails to the properties, or buildings only if the message only affects them. Apple will only allow one address to be used once in one group. You can’t have a “property name all” and a “property name building A” group as a mailbox can only be in one group. It’s very frustrating.
45 is marginal. You can probably get away with it from your consumer email account as long as you don't do it often and don't want anything fancy in the message. I wouldn't use Groups for it because that would require you to put all of your students in your Contacts. Just have a list in a text file, then copy and paste into Mail. Be sure use BCC, not TO to send the mail, otherwise all 45 students will see the other 44 people on the list (privacy issues there).
Can you send and email , let's say, to a friends group but in BCC so no other member can see who I sent it to or their email address? thank you for your advice, Berto
Thanks Gary, useful info. For years now I’ve used Gmail for all my contacts. Now I’ve retired, what would be the best way to migrate just my personal contacts to iCloud, then remove the remaining gmail ones? Thanks.
I've never really had to do that, but I would guess you could either export from Google and then import that file into Contacts. Or, you could simply add that account to the Contacts app (if it isn't already) and then drag and drop them from the Google account to the iCloud account in the left sidebar. Then remove the Google account from Contacts so it doesn't get confusing.
I don’t understand. I have a MacBook Air and it’s called list not group and I can’t add names to it. I’m lost. Help please. Thank you I watched this last week. , but I didn’t try it then.
@@macmost I saw in the comments I could make a list on my iPad I went that route. To add one has to check the boxes and it worked well for me. Thank you for all of your help.
One interesting thing to note: If you're using Google Contacts, it doesn't create a "label" but the "group" shows up as a "contact". To see all my groups there I created a label that contains the group contact.
I assume you mean the "Company" checkbox is switched on. I don't know of a way to target that in a Smart List. You can use Company "Is Set" but that gives you people too, if they have a company set.
@@macmost My thought was I could make a Yellow Pages smart list filtered on that box being ticked, and a White Pages smart list with it being not-ticked.
How do I handle employees of the same business? Say there are 3 people in my contacts that work at the same company. When I get a call, my caller ID does not show the company name, but a person's name plus 3 others or something like that. How can I get the Caller ID to show the business name since they all share the same phone number?
Create a contact for the business. When you edit a contact there is a checkbox for "Company" at the top. Add one for just the company with the phone number.
Can't even get my MAIL to work anymore. IDK! To be honest, didn't like it when I found out it was collecting emails from my SEPARATE account without me even KNOWING it!!!!!!!
The Mail app is just an app. It lets you access your email on the accounts listed in Mail, Preferences, Accounts. If you don't want to use it to look at the email for an account you have, just remove it from the list of accounts.
@@suemutter8467 I made a group in my contacts with the 70 people in it. Gave it a name and then each week I send to myself with the group in the bcc field of the email.
WRONG WRONG WRONG. I precisely followed these instructions and sent a group email only to discover each person's email address was visible to all others...a terrible breach of privacy. Bad advice.
Wrong? I never say that the emails won't be visible to everyone else. Yes, they will. That's how email works. There is an entirely different feature for privacy called BCC. But that's not what this video is about. I never give any advice to use Contacts app Groups for privacy.
