GAL stands for Global Address List. It's not what it sounds like to many people, in that it's not the same as a company wide address book.
The GAL is automatically populated with every mailbox, distribution list and alias associated with your domain name (and if you're on an Exclusive Server, perhaps other domain names too), and is used most often for auto complete of email addresses when addressing email.
The GAL information in your mailboxes' profiles when setup, or added later, is available to most mail clients. To find it in the webmail interface:
- Click on the "pointing-down black arrow" on the button that is next to the search bar located on top of the window (above the section tabs: Mail, Address Book, Calendar, etc.)
- Select "Global Address List" from the pull-down menu.
- Type in the name of the person you are looking for in the search bar
- Click on the "Search" button to the right of the search bar.
You may enhance the GAL by entering contact details for users when you create their mailbox accounts, however, the GAL should not be considered a general address book.
If you require a general address book (shared contacts), create a normal address book in Zimbra and share it to a distribution list which contains all of your users. Best practices in sharing is to create a separate, dedicated mailbox for sharing to any particular, larger group of your mailboxes, such as a company-wide mailbox called sharing@yourcompany.com, or departmentX@yourcompany.com.
Advanced note: the GAL is accessed by email clients via their normal protocols, or setup separately using an LDAP connection.
