If you’ve ever tried to send a group of contacts to someone from your iPhone before, then you’ve probably noticed there’s no easy way to do it out of the box.
While sending a group of contacts all at once requires the help of a third-party app, it’s certainly possible to do. We’ll show you how to do it in this tutorial.
Why share a group
There are a few reasons why you might want to send a group of contacts in the first place. To start, you have to understand what a contact group is.
You can group your contacts based on how you identify with them. For example, you might have a group of contacts that are primarily people from work, as well as another group of contacts that are primarily people from school, etc.
Hypothetically, if someone you work with is new to the job and asks you for the contact information of your fellow employees, then it will be more convenient to send them an entire contact group containing all of your work contacts rather than it would be to send each contact one by one.
Similar scenarios can be considered when:
- A school project partner asks you for contact information for other students in your group
- A family member asks for contact information for other family members
- A team member asks you for the contact information of everyone in the team
To sum it all up, the reason you would want to send a contact group is because it’s quicker, easier, and less cumbersome than going down the list of your contacts and sending each one individually. With that in mind, knowing how to send a group of contacts all at once is a good skill to have.
How to share a group of contacts
To send a group of contacts from your iPhone or iPad, you will need to use a third-party app. Because we weren’t really happy with any of the apps available, we created Contact Groups, a contact manager for iOS that can be downloaded for free from the App Store.
Add contacts to groups
If you haven’t already set up a contact group for the group of contacts you wish to share, then the first thing you will have to do is set one up. To do that from the Contact Groups app, follow these steps:
1) Download and launch the Contact Groups app on your iPhone or iPad and allow it to access your contacts.
2) Tap the plus sign (+) at the top right of the app.
3) Name your group and tap Add contacts.
4) Next, select the contacts and tap Save.
5) Finally, tap the Save button once again.
Share a contact group from iPhone or iPad
After setting up a new contact group or modifying an existing one, you’re ready to share it. To do that, follow these steps:
1) Launch the Contact Groups app if you’re not already in it from the previous steps.
2) Select the group of contact you want to share.
3) Tap the gray Share icon, which will open the Share Sheet.
4) From the Share Sheet, select how you want to share the group of contacts. We will choose to send it via email.
5) Write your message and send the contact group.
The recipient will get a message with the contact group attachment.
If you want to send it via iMessage, pick Messages from the Share Sheet and send the file. The receiver can tap the received message, and then it will show an option to Add All n Contacts.
Unfortunately, Mail or Messages don’t support sending groups of contacts to people out of the box. Nevertheless, using the Contact Groups app is a quick and convenient workaround.
Over the years, we’ve covered many topics related to contact management on both iOS and Mac. For those interested in learning more about this particular topic, make sure to check our tutorials on:
- How to find and delete duplicate contacts on iPhone
- How to transfer contacts from iPhone to computer
- How to disable suggested contacts on iOS and Mac
- How to delete several contacts at the same time on iPhone & iPad
Have you ever needed to share a contact group with someone before? Let us know in the comments!