If I have an OS X Address Book group of people I want to email periodic updates to, and I want to send that list to a second person who wants to email updates to this group as well, how can I do that?
If I drag the group to a Mail.app message and send that to my friend, they can open it and import all those contacts into Mail.app… however, it does not import the group, just the people. Since we know some of the same people, my friend will have some of the people from this group already in her address book. If she does and she chooses to not update her cards with my cards, then they won't even show up under "Last Import".
How can you email an address book group to another Mac user so that it shows as a group in their address book?
Best Answer
Without some sort of mailing list software, I'm not sure you'll really get the functionality you want.
As a workaround I would try setting up a custom tag, using an existing unused field, or something in Notes, and then creating a Smart Ground around that.
For example, all the contacts you want in your group, put 'mailing list' into their notes. Then create a SmartGroup to show those contacts.
Send the contacts to your friend, and they can import and merge the data. If they setup the same smart group, you should have the same contacts, with the same info, in that group.
The other option would be to stop her importing anything, and just use a Shared Addressbook, and maintain everything there. Google, Exchange, LDAP etc will let you use a remote address book, that isn't automatically synced to your local address book, but all contacts are accessibly, so you can both use that. In the groups page of the address book you'll see your local contacts, and remote contacts as distinct lists. Then, you'll just know to send to everyone in that shared address book.