How to Send and Receive Contact Distribution Lists in Outlook

Sending Distribution Lists

You can send a distribution list to others by including it in a message. The recipient can then save it to their Contacts.

To send a distribution list:

  1. Open a new message.

  2. Open Contacts.

  3. Drag the distribution list from Contacts into the message body.

    Note: You may need to adjust the message and the Contacts window so that they're visible at the same time.

  4. Send the message.

Note: If you want to send a distribution list to someone, and the distribution list contains members from the Global Address List, be sure that the recipient of the distribution list also uses that same Global Address List. This will affect sending lists to people outside of the university. 

Receiving Distribution Lists

To save a distribution list sent to you by another person, do any of the following:

  • In the Reading Pane or message list, drag the distribution list attachment to the Navigation Pane and drop it on the Contacts tab.

  • Drag the distribution list attachment from the message into an open Contacts view.

  • Right-click the distribution list attachment from the message, click Save As in the shortcut menu, and save it to your desktop. You can then drag it from your desktop and drop it into Contacts.

Print Article