Display the member count of a Contact Group

In Outlook, there is no direct way to find out how many members have been added to a Contact Group (sometimes also known as Distribution Lists).

Apparently, the Outlook Team doesn’t like to count things as Outlook also can’t display the amount of selected items.

A workaround is to save the Contact Group as a txt-file and get the line count. A more sophisticated way is to use a VBA macro as demonstrated in this guide.

• CountDLMembers macro
• Quick Install
• Macro code

CountDLMembers macro

The CountDLMembers macro allows you to get the member count of a selected Contact Group directly from your Contacts folder or from the window of an opened Contact Group.

The result is shown in a dialog box.

Message box output of the CountDLMembers macro.

Quick Install

1. Download this code-file (countdlmembers.zip) or copy the code below.
2. Open the VBA Editor (keyboard shortcut ALT+F11)
3. Extract the zip-file and import the CountMembers.bas file via File-> Import…
   If you copied the code, paste it into a new module.
4. Sign your code so you won’t get any security prompts and the macro won’t get disabled.
5. Add a button for easy access to the macro or press ALT+F8 and select the macro you want to execute.

You can add a button for the macro to the main Outlook window or the Contact Group window. 

Macro code

The following code is contained in the zip-file referenced in the Quick Install. You can use the code below for review or manual installation.

Sub CountDLMembers() '================================================================= 'Description: Outlook macro to count the amount of members in ' a Contact Group aka Distribution List. ' ' author : Robert Sparnaaij ' version: 1.0 ' website: https://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/countdlmembers.htm '================================================================= Dim objOL As Outlook.Application Dim objSelection As Outlook.Selection Dim objItem As Object Dim olDL As Outlook.DistListItem Set objOL = Outlook.Application 'Get the selected item Select Case TypeName(objOL.ActiveWindow) Case "Explorer" Set objSelection = objOL.ActiveExplorer.Selection If objSelection.Count > 0 Then Set objItem = objSelection.Item(1) Else Result = MsgBox("No item selected. " & _ "Please make a selection first.", _ vbCritical, "CountDLMembers") Exit Sub End If Case "Inspector" Set objItem = objOL.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem Case Else Result = MsgBox("Unsupported Window type." & _ vbNewLine & "Please make a selection" & _ "in the Calendar or open an item first.", _ vbCritical, "CountDLMembers") Exit Sub End Select 'Display the member count If objItem.Class = Outlook.olDistributionList Then Set olDL = objItem Result = MsgBox("The Contact Group '" & olDL.DLName & "' contains " & olDL.MemberCount & " members.", vbInformation, "CountDLMembers") 'Selected item isn't a Contact Group item Else Result = MsgBox("No Contact Group item selected. " & _ "Please make a selection first.", _ vbCritical, "CountDLMembers") Exit Sub End If 'Cleanup Set objOL = Nothing Set olDL = Nothing End Sub
Click in the area above and press CTR+A to select all. Press CTRL+C to copy the code.