Control Gmail external recipient warnings

As an admin for your organization, you can turn alerts on or off for messages that include external recipients. External recipients are people with email addresses outside of your organization. These alerts help people avoid unintentional replies, and remind them to treat external messages with caution.

When this setting is on, Gmail messages with external recipients display:

• A warning banner
• An image or colored border next to external addresses

When do warnings show

When this setting is on, Gmail shows warnings when:

• An email thread includes external recipients.
• Replying to a message from an external recipient.
• Composing a new message to an external recipient.

Gmail doesn't show a warning if the external recipient is in your organization's Directory, personal Contacts, or other Contacts. Warnings aren't displayed for secondary domain or domain alias addresses.

Turn external recipients warnings on or off

External recipient warnings are on by default. The setting to turn warnings on and off is available only for accounts that upgrade to Google Workspace.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceGmailEnd User Access.
3. (Optional) To apply the setting to a department or team, at the side, select an organizational unit. Show me how
4. Scroll to and click Warn for external recipients. 
5. Check or uncheck the box to turn warnings on or off.
6. Click Save. Or, you might click Override for an organizational unit.

   To later restore the inherited value, click Inherit. 

Changes can take up to 24 hours but typically happen more quickly. Learn more

You can monitor settings changes in the Admin console. For more information, go to Admin audit log.

Related topics

• Add a user alias domain or secondary domain
• Overview: Set up and manage the Directory