How do you add everyone in a Contacts Group (in Gmail) to a Google+ Circle?

Question

I've got some Groups in my Gmail contacts (like PhotoShare). I'd like to create (ideally auto sync) a Google+ Circle to have all those contacts to make it a bit easier to share photos, etc. (I forget exactly where (maybe on the iPad) , but in some Picasa UI's for sharing, you can choose a Circle but not a contact group.

Answer 1

There is currently no way to accomplish this. I had never tried until I read the question, but after attempting, searching, and reading about the pain that other user's are having regarding the lack of this feature. I do admit, this would be awesome to have.

Sources complaining about lack of this feature:

• https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!msg/google-plus-discuss/LR5L2bZJFvg/k3frI0AMOWgJ
• http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=73f29190221a8705&hl=en

The only way to do this is to manually add your contacts to a circle. This would require two tabs in order to keep your group open and the other tab to build the circle.

Answer 2

An easy workaround I just used is:

1. In contacts.google.com, select the contacts group you'd like to have in a Google+ circle
2. Select all the contacts by ticking the topmost "select" box
3. Click on the "mail" icon to generate (NOT send) an e-mail to all the selected contacts in the group
4. Place the cursor in the "to:" section of the generated mail
5. Use ctrl+a & ctrl+c to copy all the e-mail addresses
6. Go to Google+ and create/select the circle you want to add the Google contacts group contacts to
7. Use ctrl+v to add all the copied e-mails of the contacts group to the circle

Done.

Answer 3

Another workaround is to export the group to a CSV file, then import in to Circles.

1. In contacts.google.com, select the contacts group you'd like to have in a Google+ circle

2. Select specific contacts if you don't want to export the whole group

3. Click "More", then "Export..."

4. Choose whether you want to export selected contacts or the whole group (or another group)

5. Click Export

6. Go to Google+, then People

7. Click "Connect services"

8. Choose "Open address book", then find the file you just exported

9. Once it's exported, add each person to the circle

It's pretty quick and easy, but it will show all emails if your contacts have multiple emails.

Hope this helps! And I hope Google makes the interaction between contacts, groups, and circles a lot easier soon...