Contact Groups for when forwarding emails

[Needkeys]

Sorry in advance for the type A nature of this question. I'm currently on a Samsung S7 after having migrated to Android from a Blackberry Bold. Yes, I was a long time hold out and loyalist to Blackberry when it was still a Blackberry.

I have a business that uses a microsoft exchange server. All of my emails and contacts (and calendar, etc) sync to my S7 via Microsoft's ActiveSync platform. My workflow requires that I FORWARD emails to various teams of people across the country (not send new emails to them, but rather forward emails that first come to me). When working at a desktop, this is easy as Outlook supports contact groups you can use when forwarding emails. ActiveSync does not, however, sync contact groups in outlook. It will sync all the individual contacts, but none of the groups. When using a mobile phone, therefore, the groups need to be created manually on the device itself. That extra step is absolutely fine with me. It's a small extra step you need to take once for each group, and then it's there for all future use. Not a big deal.

The reason I'm on a Samsung S7 is that it is the one android device where it seems they have given thought to the use of contact groups when forwarding email. The native contacts app has a "groups" tab, which other phones like the Pixel do not have, and I can manually create the groups right there. Then, the native email app enables me to enter the group name in the "to" field in any email I wish forward. That's all well and fine, except it limits me to using only Samsung devices (HTC and LG have a groups option in their contacts, but it is not as simple as Samsung's...for example, when forwarding an email to a group manually created on the phone, you have to then manually toggle next to each name in the group for them to receive the email...it's a PITA extra step...you can't just enter the group name and forget about it).

So all that said, I'm wondering if there's an app out there that I just haven't been able to find that makes forwarding emails to contact groups simple. Please know that I have looked at various exchange email clients, like Nine, and the Outlook Groups app that works only for office 365 accounts.

I'm hoping I'm missing something. I wouldn't mind at least having the option of using a phone other than Samsung's...and who knows how long Samsung will continue to support groups given that almost all the other OEM's have abandoned it. Are there any apps you know of that can accomplish this?

FWIW, when I communicated with a Senior Business Consultant at Apple about this, they told me the only solution was to create a "note" with the contact group email addresses, and then copy/paste that note into the "to" field anytime I wanted to forward an email to a group. Brutal.

I can't imagine my need for business team communications is so unique. Just odd that there aren't more apps to make this type of group email communication more possible.

 

[Needkeys]

Bump. Anyone?

 

[ManiacJoe]

Behind the scenes, the way email works is that "groups" or "distribution lists" need to be converted into individual email addresses to be sent to. Normally this is done on the server side. For large companies running their own email servers, distribution lists are easily used and maintained but are usually restricted to only internal users.

There are also external services like Yahoo Groups and Google Groups where you can create public or private groups so that the service does all the group-to-individual translations and management.

On the client app side, the similar process is relatively easy, but most likely the programmers have not done it due to a lack of demand.

Storing the list members in a note or text file to be pasted into the "to" line is ugly, but works for all clients apps.

I use the paid version of "Aqua Mail". It will read your groups from the phone's Contacts list and paste all the members into the "to" line for you. The Play Store description of "Blue Mail" says they support groups as well. I am not sure how well either of these apps support your other needs.