1/12/23
9:00 am

Using Lists in Contacts on Mac, iPhone and iPad

Lists replace Groups in the Contacts app and since you can now manage them on the iPhone and iPad they are much more useful.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at using Lists in the Contacts App on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. 
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So with macOS Ventura and iOS 16 there have been some changes to the Contacts App. First, if you use Groups before in Contacts on your Mac you may have already noticed that Groups are now called Lists. Those Lists can be seen on the iPhone and iPad just as before. But a big change is that now you can manage those groups, creating new ones, adding and removing people from those Lists right on your iPhone and iPad. You don't have to do it on your Mac and have it sync to those devices. 
So let's launch the Contacts App here. On the left you should see here your account and any Lists you've created and then for whatever you have selected a list of all the names and then on the right you see whatever the contact is that you have selected. If you don't see all these columns go to the View Menu and here's where you could Hide and Show Lists. Also note that if the window is too small you won't be able to see those Lists there either. 
Now before we go any further I want to note that you can use multiple contacts services in the Contacts App. But when you do things get complex really fast. If you look in Contacts under Settings, that is Settings NOT accounts, then you go to Accounts in here you'll see all the different accounts you've got and for each one you can enable this account. If you've got more than one enabled you're going to see multiple accounts here on the left and things are going to get complex. You may see duplicate contacts because they're in both services and  when you create a new contact it could be confusing which service you're creating the contact in. You could be creating it, for instance, in Goggle or Yahoo instead of in iCloud. So unless you're ready to manage all the extra complexity, just have one account enabled, probably your iCloud Account and use just that. 
Now you could see here I already have one List created. One called Team. I have three contacts in it. You're always going to see All Contacts here. All Contacts is simply not viewing any group at all. You're just looking at every contact you have in that account, in this case iCloud. You just see the contacts in each List by selecting the List there. Now to create a new List you can go to File and use New List or New List From Selection. New List From Selection may be the quickest way to create a List. I'm holding down the Command Key so I can select noncontiguous contacts here, like this. So I have four selected. I can do New List From Selection and I would have a new List with those four in it. But you could also just choose New List to create an empty List. It gives it a default name there and you could click in there and then give it a name. I'll just call this Test. There's nothing in it. So to add contacts to it I'm going to go back to the All Contacts listing here so I could see all my contacts and I can select and Drag a contact into the group and it adds it. I can keep doing that for anything I need. I could also use the Command Key to select multiple contacts and then Drag both in there. So now when I look in here I can see all the contacts I've added. 
So this is kind of like a playlist in the Music App or an album in Photos. The contacts aren't really in this List. They are still just in your database of contacts. So if I remove one from the list, I'm going to use the Delete Key to do that, you could see I get the option to Remove From the List or Delete Entirely. By just removing from the List it is still in All Contacts. So you can continue to add contacts to this List. You can remove the contacts and have as many of these lists as you want. You can use one, say, for a group at work or all of your work colleagues, or people on a sports team you belong to, or your family, or friends, or any group you want. Create as many as you like. Use them as you like. Or you don't have to use them at all if you have no need for lists. 
With a List you can email everybody in the List at once. To do that you can select the List and Control Click on it, two-finger click on your trackpad, right click on your mouse, and one of the options here is Send Email To, and it is the entire group. Let's do that. It's going to launch the Mail App and you could see here at the top it's got the name of that group here. So if I were to Send a message the four people in that group would get this email. Now if you'd rather see the names of the people in the group in the Mail App you can set that over here in Mail, Settings and go to Composing and then there check, When Sending to Group Show All Member Addresses. So now when I do the same thing notice I get all of their email addresses up there. 
Another way you can send to a group is you can just type the group name. So I can type Test here and you could see it comes up with an email address there, but also the group and I can add it that way. 
You can also use groups just to quickly find an email address using this List here on the right. Click that Plus Button there and you select one of your groups. It gives you a shorter List than if you, say, selected All Contacts. So you could select a group here, like that. Then quickly find the one name that you wanted and select their email address. You could include multiple groups really easily. Just type one group like that. Let me select. Then I'll type another group like that and then it adds those as well. 
So on the iPhone and iPad you can go into your Contacts App. If you're at this level here looking at all of your contacts just go up one level to Lists. Now you're going to see the List that maybe you've already created on your Mac because they sync across on iCloud. You can also add your own List here with the button at the top right. You can give it a name like that and you can go into the List and easily add names to the List. So I could tap the Plus Button there at the top right and I could add different names and then Done. Now you could see all of the names that I've added there. If I want to remove one I could tap, Hold, and then there's Remove From List. I could add more. I could easily email everybody in this List with this handy email button at the top of the List. You could see it adds them all to the TO field there. But also in the Mail App I could simply type the name of the List and it will show the List there. I can tap it to select the entire List or I can tap here to the right to go into the List itself and add a specific name. 
You can actually use Drag and Drop to add to the List as well. I'm going to go back to All iCloud here and I'm going to select a few names here by tapping and holding and then dragging. Then while dragging I can tap another name and you can see it adds that to it. So I'm dragging two now. So I've got one finger still held down. With another finger I'm going to tap the Lists Button at the top left and then I could drop into the List there and I've added those names. 
So finally now we have the ability in iOS 16 and iPad OS16 to create and manage Lists right on our devices. We don't have to rely on our Macs to do it. But there are still a couple of features that are Mac Only. One of those is Smart Lists. You can create a Smart List and it is similar to a Smart Playlist in Music or Smart Album in Photos. Call it what you want and then set criteria for it. So, for instance, you can use your family's last name and then quickly create a Family Group. You can use the email address, like that, and quickly create a group from your company. You can choose various different criteria to have the Smart List created and it will automatically update. So if you added a new contact and it met this criteria it would automatically be added to the Smart List. But, the Smart List would only be seen on your Mac. You wouldn't see them at all on your iPhone or iPad.
Another thing you can only do on your Mac, but should be useable on your iPhone and iPad once you have it setup is setting the distribution list or a list here. That sounds a little confusing but it's actually a pretty simple function. If you select a List and then go to Edit and then Edit Distribution List you get a little view here of your list. It actually still calls it Group here in this interface. So you select it and what you can do here is choose things like an email address, phone number, address for each person. So, for instance, for these first two there's only one email address. But for this third person here there's two email addresses. So I could say if I ever email this List use this email address for this person. 
Another thing you can do on the Mac, and you could also do it on the iPhone and iPad, is export an entire List. So I can Control Click on it and then Export List to vCard and then save the card or I can simply Drag and Drop the entire List here and I have a standard format contacts file that can be imported by somebody else or maybe just used by me as a backup.
So, of course, if you're not using iCloud for this, if you're using Goggle, Yahoo, Outlook, some other server then you may not have all this functionality. So if something is not working for you, and you're sure you're using macOS Ventura or iOS 16 or newer and it is still not working then perhaps it is because you're not using iCloud to store your contacts but another system that doesn't support one of these functions. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 24 Responses to “Using Lists in Contacts on Mac, iPhone and iPad”

Howard Brazee

2 years ago

I have my contacts on Google, so that my wife and I have the same list. It has some issues (as you mentioned).

I can’t edit the distribution list (it’s greyed out) & I can’t share smart lists.

Julie Armstrong

2 years ago

Thanks Gary - I am using contacts for other important information. For example I have a list called appliances and I include all contact information for my fridge, internet, vacuum repair, etc. On the card I include my serial number, account or warranty info. Is there a way to attach a picture or file to the contact card?

Lynda Farabee

2 years ago

apparently this "lists" feature cannot send texts/messages?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Julie: Not really, no. Maybe create a folder in your Documents folder to hold images and PDFs and name those files so they are easy to find.

Geoff

2 years ago

I know how to email a group/list but I can’t figure out how to text a list. I can add phone numbers one at a time to a text but I would be so much easier to send. Is there a way to do that?

tomdaily40

2 years ago

Can you transfer lists created on the mac to the iphone? Will they transfer automatically

Tom Daily

2 years ago

I have lists as smart lists on the mac, but they don't appear on my iphone, even though I made the same list title on the iphone.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Geoff: No easy way to do it with Messages.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Tom Daily: Regular lists transfer automatically if you are using iCloud. Smart Lists do not because there are no Smart Lists in the Contacts app for the iPhone.

Phil Barber

2 years ago

Any ideas why Lists are available on iPhone , iPad, and iCloud but do not show on iMac (all with latest software) contacts are on iMac but not lists. Apple support have been looking at it for a month. Am I the only one with problem.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Phil: Are you up-to-date and using Ventura? Are you sure you are looking at the right account in the left sidebar?

Philip Montrowe

2 years ago

Gary, is there a way to specify multiple email addresses for the same contact--i.e. if I have contact Jane Doe and she has a work email address and a home email address, can I have a list that includes two entries for Jane Doe, one with work, and the other with home?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Philip: I don't think so, no.

Phil Barber

2 years ago

Hi Gary, Using Ventura 13.1. Apple thought the problem was related to Cliptools so re-created my account from scratch after re installing operating system without any additional software, but the problem is the same on the new account. Have a 1100 contacts on the Mac but 1130 in iCloud . All other apps Calendar , notes etc all syncing. Added new contact from Iphone, Ipad and Mac and they all sync within seconds. Just no lists on the Mac

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Phil: They thought it was related to MY app? Ugh. Why would they say that? My app have nothing at all to do with the Contacts app and doesn't use iCloud at all. That's so frustrating that they would blame my app for this.
So what happens if you create a List ON your Mac? Do you see that list? Does that one sync to your other devices?

Phil Barber

2 years ago

I guess they were looking for anything that was different to what they had seen before but the new accountant totally ruled out Cliptools. If I create a list on the mac it stays on the Mac. It doesn’t sync back to iCloud and therefore not to iPad or iPhone. However if I add a contact on the Mac it does sync back. Very frustrating.

Derek Brown

2 years ago

Hi Gary, I don't think this can be done anymore but is there any way to only view selected Lists of Contacts or Contacts with no List? My wife and I share one iCloud a/c across two iPhones with 10 Contact Lists. I use to be able to only select my relevant lists (5 out of 10 lists) in my iPhone & my wife would only select her relevant Lists (5 out of 10) in her iPhone prior to ios 16. We seem to only be able to view one list at a time now?

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Derek: Yes, I think Lists are one-at-a-time.

Liz

2 years ago

Contacts constantly shows the beachball on my computer (Ventura 13.1) for many years. Updates don't matter. I have to repeatedly quit the app, to reopen it to drag a contact to a list. I'll drag a few and then it just stops. I have to quit the app again, reopen and then I can resume and cards will move. It's as if (1) it constantly is pinging the cloud and (2) gets "tired". Scientific I know. Happens on a friend's laptop too so I know it's not just me. I noticed you didn't seem to get the ball.

Gary Rosenzweig

2 years ago

Liz: I'd talk to Apple Support and get it worked out.

Bill Scheerer

2 years ago

Thanks for the video, Gary! Somehow I completely missed that the management of Groups/Lists was added to iOS and iPadOS 16. It's a decade overdue. Ironically, in the Contacts app on iCloud.com it still uses the Group terminology.

Jim Tipton

2 years ago

I don't understand why a contacts card on a Mac would not include information or a prompt to indicate what lists that specific contact is included in. I see that in iOS, that feature is available. If this is a setting or work around, it has eluded me. If it doesn't exist, hopefully an update fixes it. If you can see who's in a list from the list view, you should be able to see what list a contact is in from the contact view.

Abe

1 year ago

Gary, how do I import multiple contacts into a new Contact List ? I need to create a new list and I don't want to have to type 250 addresses one at a time.

Mac desktop
Outlook email

Gary Rosenzweig

1 year ago

Abe: See https://macmost.com/importing-and-exporting-contacts-on-a-mac.html

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Using Lists in Contacts on Mac, iPhone and iPad

Comments: 24 Responses to “Using Lists in Contacts on Mac, iPhone and iPad”

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