How do I create groups of Active Directory contacts in Mac OS X Mail?

Question

I'm using Mac Mail on OS X 10.6 and I want to create a mailing group. However, I don't want the people in the group actually to be in my address book--I want them to be entries from active directory, and I only want the group to exist locally but not the individual contacts.

Alternately, I want a mailing group in Mail that's just a list of e-mail addresses--bottom line is I do not want a whole bunch of new entries in my address book just for the sake of a few mailing groups.

Is this possible? Please note "keep a text file of the groups and copy/paste" is not the answer I'm looking for. Thanks!

Answer 1

AFAIK You can't and it is considered by design.

The source for data to Apple Mail is the Address Book, which needs an LDAP connection to the Active Directory to show data. Having tested now, there seems to be no way to create the group in the address book and link names from AD since it expects the address to exist locally. It will basically import the card from AD to your local address book, and place it inside the new group.

It seems like the text file route, or even using something like Outlook 2011 will be the only other alternative.