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Problem with address book groups

I have been a Microsoft Exchange Server user for years and recently migrated to a mac.

Macmail seems to work fine but i am having a nightmare with Address Book. Like many "professionals" i need to use distribution lists frequently. as far as i understand it the equivalent thing within Macmail/Address Book is the Group. I can create Groups and populate them with people that are within my "master" contacts listing (which is on the server and visible within Address Book). When i try to send a message to that group only a few members it appear in the "To" line and actually get the message. Restarting the software or mac does nothing. All have valid email addresses. This is driving me nuts. I can delete the group, create a new group with the same or different name and exactly the same problem. Any advice would be hugely welcome.

Posted on May 7, 2011 12:15 PM

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23 replies

May 11, 2017 10:44 AM in response to NanoJ

Not sure how this community thingy works, but I hoping somebody out there will have the same problem as mine:

I have created a group - copied names of contacts from main contact list into new group (there are 7 names) - created a new email and included the new group name in the "To" line - when I check this, all 7 names have been duplicated and the people I have sent the email to have received two emails. I now remove the duplicates from the "To" line but I will shortly be sending out an email to 180 members of a society and fear that I will be sending out 360 emails.

Any suggestions?

May 7, 2011 12:39 PM in response to NanoJ

I've never seen this happen - perhaps someone else has. In the meantime I can only suggest that you look at a couple things. Look at a group and see who is and isn't showing up when you use that group in an email. Is there anything that the members who are showing up have in common with each other that they don't have in common with the others? Try deleting one of your contacts from the 'Master' group and then re-entering him/her and adding the contact back to the group. Did that result in the person showing up this time?

May 7, 2011 11:09 PM in response to NanoJ

Hi - many thanks. I cannot see any patterns. I can wipe a member from a Gp - this also seems to wipe them from my master contacts list (should it?). I can the re-enter them and add them again to the group. Sometimes this seems to work (in the sense that they appear in the "To" line when i email to the group), sometimes it does not.

Three other questions: can you have people as members of several groups?

Are groups created on a mac visible on a blackberry/mobile device looking at the same account?

Within Addresses i seem to always have one Group called "Contacts" - should that be so or could this be the source of problems?

Am i actually using Groups correctly or should i be using Smart Groups for this (i thought Smart groups were just a quick way of putting together a group automatically).

May 8, 2011 4:33 AM in response to NanoJ

You understand the purpose of Groups just fine. A Smart Group simply lets you automate the process of creating a Group by using a filter. For example, "make everyone employed by GE a member of the GE Group" whereas Group requires you to hand assemble. Yes, a person may belong to more than one group. And when you delete someone from the group that person should remain in the master group (and in any other groups s/he belongs to) so there's another hint of serious problems.


Where is this address book data coming from? Did you import it from another computer? Is it subscribed to from Google or another service? At this point I suspect the data and/or data source.

May 8, 2011 4:48 AM in response to NanoJ

actually, when you send a message to a group, you should only see the group name in the To. field. if you right-click on it, try expand group, you should see al valid email address within the selected group


all contacts is the base address book, your full contact list. it should be there.


I have a couple of ideas about your problem:


first is that Address Book does not work with all versions of exchange server, and does not support folders. groups are more or less like itunes playlists: they don't move contacts from "all contacts", they just add a "bookmark" to it. that's why, if you try and delete a contact from a group, yuo have to decide whether to remove said contact from its group or from address book (that's what you should expect to happen, at least)


second: you might check field translation, if your contacts' addresses are not in an email field in address book, mail might not be able to parse addresses correctly

May 8, 2011 6:53 AM in response to Enrico CHP

Hi - many thanks guys for taking the time to think about this.

Some more information. Yes, this is all with a Microsoft Exchange Server at the University (this is where all the individual contacts are sitting).

If i highlight, left hand side in Address Book, my email address (the one associated with the exchange account), then go to "File" there is no "New group from selection" option available (greyed out). New Folder and New Smart Group are available. Ive got a feeling, then, that i was creating and populating folders rather than groups. If i generate a new Smart Group then i return to everything being weird again (i cannot reliably delete these groups and emails to group name go onto to certain members i,e those members that appear immediately in the "To" line.


If i select "On my mac" then i can create a Group by Selection, populate it and everything seems to be normal (ie it all works). These distribution lists are not, however, sitting on the server thus re not available on my blackberry when i am travelling (which is what i would like). Is there really no way of using the same email distribution lists on a mac and on a portable device talking to the same exchange server (or is this exchange server dependent?).

May 8, 2011 7:08 AM in response to NanoJ

I recall fighting with a similar situation last winter trying to help a former colleague when she moved on to bigger and better things. When we last talked about this I suggested using Google as her repository or pitching a fit until IT got off their duffs and solved it for her. I know it was resolved but I don't know how.

May 10, 2011 12:19 PM in response to dwb

I have sort of solved this but not entirely sure how. I can at least create groups in address book, populate them with contacts sitting in my exchange account and generate distribution lists which mostly work. The IT people here (generally excellent and including both Exchange buffs and Mac lovers) have been largely useless. The only suggestions being use Outlook 2011 (which crashes on my macbook pro continually) or web outlook (which is limited on a mac and doesnt handle distribution lists!).

It does seem that the distribution lists i create on the mac are NOT visible on my blackberry though (meaning i cannot use the same distribution lists when i am travelling which seems absurd).

May 11, 2011 1:34 AM in response to dwb

Hi - sorry to labour this.

Distribution lists generated as groups in macmail/address book ARE visible on my exchange server through outlook web. there are not, though, useable as lists (I cannot email the list). They are not even visible on my blackberry (though normal contacts created in macmail are). I think there is a fundamental difference in how mac and exchange handle distribution lists so there may not be a solution to this.

Apr 15, 2012 5:13 AM in response to NanoJ

I am experiencing this same problem with Groups. I created a group by dragging each contact into the group within the address book. Yet when I create the email not all contacts from group are in the email list. Has anyone found a solution to this.


What is the ditribution list as opposed to a group? The edit distribution list is grayed out.

Jul 18, 2012 12:16 AM in response to NanoJ

Hi there


NanoJ did you resolve the issue? I have the same problem sitting at home and trying to get Mail to send an email to all the contacts in the group I created.


Some of the steps and I took and problems found were:

  • Enter contacts into Address Book by finding their email address and clicking on 'add to address book.'
  • Editing AB where necessary to have first and last names and the email address and its type as the minimum info.
  • Created the group then highlighted, dragged and dropped the contacts into the group.
  • Wrote an email, selected the group, and 7 of the 20 names appeared in the address bar, not the group name as suggested above and as I thought should happen.
  • Sent email to see if it was just those 7 to whom it was sent. It was.
  • I can see no pattern to the exclusions - many are from the same organisation and therefore have the same email format. A couple of people in a different organisation received it.
  • I am using a Yahoo email address.
  • Looking at the group in AB everything seems to match.
  • I am using Mail 5.2 and AB 6.1.2 in Lion 10.7.4


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jul 19, 2012 5:07 AM in response to Deglossed

this same problem (not all contacts in a group being entered in the 'to' field) has been driving me mad for ages


and i finally just found the answer on another list


amazingly... it's quit mail and reopen mail


i thought yeah, right... that's going to work...


but it did


if you've added contacts to a group in address book since you last closed mail, they won't show up when you send a message to that group - unless you quit and reopen mail first


hey ho...

Problem with address book groups

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