Sending an e-mail message is quick and painless, but not when you must regularly send messages to a whole group of people. It can be a frustrating and time-consuming task to type a whole list of addresses or retrieve them from your e-mail application’s Address Book.

The tedium of sending e-mail to groups is tackled in Microsoft Outlook Express, the e-mail program that often comes bundled with Windows. Outlook Express lets you easily and quickly set up groups containing the e-mail addresses of people to whom you send the same type of messages.
 

The tedium of sending e-mail to groups is tackled in Microsoft Outlook Express, the e-mail program that often comes bundled with Windows. Outlook Express lets you easily and quickly set up groups containing the e-mail addresses of people to whom you send the same type of messages.

Say, for example, you frequently send messages to the same group of co-workers. Instead of typing each individual’s e-mail address every time you want to send a message, you can instead set up a group containing the co-workers’ addresses. Then when you are ready to send a message, you simply click the “Co-workers” group list in Outlook Express, and each address will appear in the “To:” line of your e-mail message.

Group lists are also ideal when you are communicating online with like-minded individuals. If, for example, you are a bicycling enthusiast and have met other cyclists online, you may want to share information you come across with these online friends. You can simply create a group called “Cyclists” containing each e-mail address of the cyclists with whom you want to communicate.

SENDING “BCC:” GROUP E-MAIL
Now, here’s an important tip when sending e-mail messages to many recipients who may not know each other: it’s considered good e-mail etiquette to ensure that each recipient cannot see the e-mail addresses of all the other recipients.

To do this, type your own e-mail address into the To: line and type the recipients’ addresses in the Bcc: line. “Bcc” stands for “blind carbon copy,” which means that only the sender can see the addresses typed into this field. By doing this, the only address your recipients will see is your own, and no one will be upset about an address that’s been disclosed to the group.

Tutorial: Creating a Contact Group
Tutorial: Removing a Contact from a Contact Group

 
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