Add and remove group members in Outlook

Modified on Fri, 23 Jul 2021 at 11:50 AM

As projects come and go, so too will your group members. Undoubtedly, you'll need to add and remove members over the life of the group; you might even need to add or remove group owners.

Any member of a group can invite others to the group, but only the group owner can remove them. The group owner is usually the person who created the group but others can be assigned this role as well. It's recommended that groups should have at least two owners, in case one of them is unavailable.

Windows

Add members to your group

Open Outlook for Windows.
Under Groups in the left folder pane, select your group.
On the Groups ribbon, select Add Members.
In the Add Members box, search for people within your organization either by their full name or email address, and then select the names to add.
Click OK.

Note: You can't edit group membership using the Address Book. If you try to add or remove members using the Address Book you may see an error.

Add guests to a group

When you add guests, also known as external users, to a group, you're granting them access to all information within the group. This includes emails, calendar, project notes, project files, and project plans. Guests don't see a Groups node in their navigation pane in Outlook but do receive group emails and links to files through their inbox.

The groups header indicates when guest users are included in the group, as shown in this example.

Guest membership is indicated in your group header

When you invite a guest to join a group, they will be notified by email that they've been added. They'll begin to receive group conversations and calendar events in their inbox. But guest members do have limitations as to what they can see and do in a group. For example, guests can't:

Be group owners
View the global address list
View all information on group member contact cards
View membership of the group

The group owner can revoke guest access at any time.

To add guests to a group

Open Outlook for Windows.
Under Groups in the left folder pane, select your group.
On the Groups ribbon, select Add Members.
In the Add Members box, enter the email address of the guest and press Enter.
Select OK.

Remove a member from a group

Only group owners can remove members.

Under Groups in the left folder pane, select your group.
On the ribbon, select Edit Group.
In the Edit Group box, point to the name of the member you want to remove, and click the X.