Cannot create a contact group in Outlook 2013

Question

As seen in the Microsoft Forums.

Contact groups are greyed out in Outlook 2013

I am experiencing the same problem as the topic starter there on Office 2013 60-day trial 64 bit on Windows 8 pro 64 bit. I use Outlook for 4 mail addresses. One is a Hotmail address, two are Gmail addresses and the last one is of my school, but is linked to Gmail as well.

Can't seem to fix this.

Answer 1

You are getting this behavior because contact groups are not supported by Outlook-2013. you’ll need to create an address book and import your contact groups into it.

1. Export your Outlook 2010 contacts to an Outlook data file. See Export items to an Outlook Data File (.pst).

2. In Outlook 2013, add a new Outlook data file. See Create an Outlook Data File (.pst) to save your information.

3. Import your Outlook 2010 contacts into the new Outlook data file:

a. Click File→Open→Export.

b. Click Import Export.

c. Click Import from another program or file.

d. Click Outlook Data File (.pst). Browse to the Outlook 2010 data file.

e. In the Import Outlook Data File dialog, expand the Outlook Data File folder and select the Contacts folder.

f. Click Import items into the same folder in and select the new Outlook data file.

NOTE: You may need to close and reopen Outlook for the contacts to display correctly.

All information is from Manually migrate Outlook Hotmail Connector features and settings to Outlook 2013

Answer 2

Here is the workaround I found. On the main Mail screen there is a taskbar call QuickSteps:

1. Select create new

2. Under name, type in your group name you would like

3. Under choose an action, select New Message

4. Hit the To button to get to your contacts and select who you want in your group. Hit save then finish. The group will now be in that QuickStep area and when you click on it, it brings up a new email with all the contacts filled in.