Maintain Distribution List

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JGT1942

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Outlook version
Outlook 2013 32 bit
Email Account
POP3
I have Office 2013 x32 installed on my Win8.1 X64 system and have used Outlook (with POP account support) since it became available. IMHO one of the major short comings of Outlook is the lack of support for distribution list. I've attempted to use categorizes either I'm using it incorrectly or it is another failure by Microsoft. Often I need to send an email to more than one distribution list. This is easy if I use the old distribution list, I just open a new email and enter the names of the distribution list in the appropriate field and the email will be sent to everyone. The major issue with the old distribution list is that if a contact changes the email address the change does not get automatically reflected in the distribution list.

Thus I switched to using the categories. Now the list is correctly updated however using the categories is limited. I can open the contacts (People in OL 2013), set the view to categories, search for my desired categories and select the desired list. Thus I cannot just enter the name of the category in the TO, CC or BC field and if I have multiple categories I want to send the email to "if" I initially select them in the People view they will be added to the TO list. This is bad enough, e.g. everybody is added to the TO list. If I send an email to a bunch of people I prefer to use the BC field and avoid sending the entire list to everybody. However "IF" I'm in the middle of an email and realize I forgot to include a category I don't know of a way to add it to the existing email.

Am I doing something wrong? Are there better ways?
 
major short comings of Outlook is the lack of support for distribution list.
Are you sure you are using POP3? DL's, aka Contact Groups, are available in all account types except Outlook.com Active Sync.
 
Are you sure you are using POP3? DL's, aka Contact Groups, are available in all account types except Outlook.com Active Sync.
Yes I'm using POP3. If I look at my account settings it states "POP/SMTP"
By support for DL I was not clear. If I create a DL and then if one of my contacts changes his email, I change the email in the contact entry this does not change it in the DL. To my knowledge there is no automatic method to keep the DL in-sync with the actual contact entry. If I have a contact in numerous DLs it is near impossible to update all of the DLs.
 
Ok, yeah... DLs don't automatically update - you need to open the DL and click the Update button. Oh, and when you update a DL, the autocomplete cache has been know to use the old DL information. It's annoying, but yeah, they can be better than using categories if you send a lot of group mail.

One option for small groups is using Quick Steps - but they have the same limitations for address changes and would need to be manually updated.

I have a macro that can set a category on DL members so you know which ones they are in - to make it easier to update the dl. http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/co...on-lists-contact-groups-a-contact-belongs-to/ -

There is also an addin you can use to search DLs for a contact - http://www.outlookappins.com/products/contact-group-searcher
 
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