Groups, labels, Google Contacts. What is it all about and why should you be using labels? Well in today's video I want to show how you can save time by creating groups within Google Contacts. Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress
Why Use Groups
and when you create labels, formally known as groups within Google Contacts, you can save yourself so much time. If you have a team or particular group of people
that you contact on a regular basis, isn't it easy just to select one group here and then boom! All of their email addresses are input here on the to line. But this isn't the only place where you can use groups. You can use it in other Google applications as well.
Getting to Google Contacts
Now, let's get started by going back to Google Contacts. I want to show you two ways to get there because this is a question I get frequently.
Number one: If we go to the top right-hand corner, we have our Google Apps icon (the grid of dots). By clicking this, you should be able to find the Contacts icon. Now, if you don't see it up here, you may have to scroll down below. And let's not forget, you can drag these icons around. So, if you happen to find Contacts somewhere down below and want it in that top row, you can just drag it up and click it here.
But an even easier way to get into Google Contacts is to use a keyboard shortcut: simply type G C on your keyboard. This will immediately bring up Google Contacts—G for Google, C for Contacts.
Creating Labels
Alright, so let's talk about labels. You'll see labels over here on the left-hand side, and you can see that I've already created two labels: one from a Gmail example called "ABC Work Project," which includes four individuals, and another one called "Client Team," also with four individuals.
But let's start by creating a brand new label. You'll find this option at the bottom, indicated by a little plus sign. All you need to do is select a name for the label. I'm just going to keep it simple and name it "New Label," then click "Save."
Now, I've got my "New Label," but if I click on it, you'll notice that I don't have any contacts with this label yet. At this point, my only options are to either rename the label or delete it.
So, let's go back to my contacts. Let's say I want to select a few people to add to this new label. I'm just going to randomly select a few contacts—let's grab this one here and then select these three in a row as an example.
Applying Labels
So I've got these three selected and what I can do is I can come up here to the top
and when I click on manage labels, all I need to do is select the one that I want to apply it to so I'm gonna select New Label. Alright the check mark is there and I'm gonna select apply and now if we come over here you can see the New Label,
when I hover over it, I see these two icons but if I come over here you'll see there's a number three beside it. That's because, that's right, I've got those three people. They are now part of this group.
So when I use the New Label in Gmail and some other applications, all three of these individuals will be attached to it. Now it's very easy to remove people from a label as well. Very much similar as we did before.
If we check it, we can come up here and we can remove them from the label. I can uncheck such as that, apply, and now that person is no longer here.
Adding People to Labels
Now, Google actually gives you an additional way to add people to labels as well
and that would be if I grab someone like this, and I drag them into the label. You see that that is now gone from four to five because I've dragged that individual into this Client Team so you can drag people into labels as well.
And remember, you can change these and edit these at any time that you want.
If your Work Team changes over time, someone leaves the company, someone joins your team, you can change that on the fly. You don't have to change the name at all
and that's going to apply everywhere else.
Using Labels in Google Calendar
Now I've already shown you how you can use this in Gmail, right, you can just search.
You can just start typing just like you would any other name, any other contact name and that label should appear. But that's not the only place you need to go. There are other advantages of using such a label.
If we go into Google Calendar, we can also take advantage of Google Contacts. So let's say I want to invite the entire team to a new meeting. Let me just call this New Meeting 1. Give it a real simple name there.
I'm gonna select on more options and you're probably familiar with the add guests area. This is where you would typically start typing in the name or the email address of everyone that you want to attend. Well in this case, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start typing in the name of, there's my Client Team that I want to add to this. So there it is. It appears in this quick search.
I'm gonna select it and immediately I have all the members of my client team. All five members are now added to this invitation. Another tip that I like to share is that even if you are not always needing the entire team but maybe you need just three out of the five or four out of the five, it's often quicker to add the team and then now, I can select remove for the particular individuals that I don't want to attend this particular meeting.
It's a lot faster then me trying to type in four separate email addresses, right, one at a time. Might as well just add the whole team and then quickly remove that particular person. So, now I've got those people here. I can send this meeting off and invite the whole group.
Using Labels in Google Drive
Another place where you can make use of labels and groups within Google Contacts is within Drive as well and probably the most typical example is when you're sharing information.
So let's say I want to share this JPEG file here. I've got it selected. I'm gonna come up here and go to share. That will bring up the share with others dialog and here again, we are recommended to enter in a name or an email address, but when it comes to names, we can use our labels. Here I'm gonna type in ABC for my ABC Work Project. It even tells me how many contacts are in there. I can select it
and now all four are input here into this screen. I can hit send and share it with everyone immediately. Now, keep in mind, in my examples, I've only used a few small groups, right? Of only about four or five individuals.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no limit on the number of contacts you can put inside a label. So if you have a much larger group or a much larger team you can do so, but please no spam.
Don't put a hundred or a few thousand. I don't see the purpose or why you would need to manage that. There's probably much better tools such as MailChimp
for example if you are using it for a newsletter or email marketing. On that note, I do know that there is a limit of 25,000 contacts that you can keep within the contacts for a single Google account.
You probably could put all 25,000 into a label, but I do not see why you would ever want to do so. As always, I'd love to here from you next.
Which of the tips that I shared is most helpful to you and how do you plan to get more out of labels and creating groups here in Google Contacts? And as always, if you have other suggestions for future videos here on the Simpletivity channel, please let me know in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching. I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel. Give this video a thumbs up and don't forget to leave me a comment or a question down below.
Remember: being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
