Email people with a single address, work on projects together, organize meetings and events, and more.
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In this section, you learn how to: |
Create a group
- Sign in to Google Groups.
- At the top, click Create group.
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Enter information and choose settings for the group.Settings reference.
- Click Create group.
- Wait a few minutes for your new group to become active before sending a message to it. Otherwise, you might get a notification that your message couldn't be delivered.
- (Optional) Next steps: Choose advanced settings for your group.
Settings reference
Group info
Option | Description |
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Group name |
Enter a name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines:
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Group email |
Enter an email address for the group. If more than one domain is displayed, select the appropriate domain from the list. Follow these guidelines:
If you're creating your group in a work or school account, your email address might include a suffix, such as -user-created. For example, if your group name is training, the actual email address might be training-user-created@your_domain. |
Group description |
(Optional) To add information to the group’s About page, enter the purpose of the group or how it's used. You could include information about group members, group content, an FAQ, links to related groups, and so on. |
Privacy settings
Option | Description |
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Who can search for group |
Choose an option for who can find the group by searching for the group’s name, email address, or conversations:
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Who can join group |
Choose an option:
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Who can view conversations | Choose who can see conversations posted to the group. |
Who can post | Choose who can send messages to the group email address. |
Who can view members | Choose who can view the group's member list. |
Adding members
Option | Description |
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Group members | Enter the names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the member role.
By default, group members have basic permissions. Depending on the organization and group settings, these permissions might include viewing and posting to conversations and viewing members. Group owners and managers can add to or limit members’ permissions. Any permissions that are set for the member role are automatically given to managers and owners. |
Group managers | Enter the names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the manager role.
By default, managers can do everything that owners can do except:
Group owners can set any permission to owner-only, further limiting what managers can do. However, managers always have the ability to adjust permissions to include managers. A group can’t be a manager of another group. |
Group owners | Enter the names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the owner role.
By default, members with the owner role have all permissions for a group. Many of these permissions can be assigned to other sets of users. Review all member and content management permissions. Only an owner can:
Only group owners and managers can change a group’s settings. If you’re signed into a work or school account, for a given group, an administrator can remove some owner permissions, but not others:
A group can’t be the owner of another group. |
Welcome message | Enter a message emailed to people when they're added to the group without being invited. This option is available only if Directly add members is on. |
Invitation message | Enter a message sent to people in their email invitation to join the group. Invitees click a link in the invitation to join. This option is available only if Directly add members is off. |
Subscription |
Set preferences for receiving email from the group. Options include:
To receive abridged summaries or digests of a group’s messages, you must turn on conversation history for the group. |
Directly add members |
Set whether to add members to the group directly, or invite members to join. If you turn Directly add members:
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Advanced settings reference
After you create your group, you can choose additional settings such as message moderation and email footers.
General | Member privacy | Posting policies | Email options | Member moderation
General
Setting | Description |
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Group name |
Enter a name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines:
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Group email |
Enter an email address for the group. If more than one domain is displayed, select the appropriate domain from the list. Follow these guidelines:
If you're creating your group in a work or school account, your email address might include a suffix, such as -user-created. For example, if your group name is training, the actual email address might be training-user-created@your_domain. |
Group description |
(Optional) To add information to the group’s About page, enter the purpose of the group or how it's used. You could include information about group members, group content, an FAQ, links to related groups, and so on. |
Welcome message | Enter, edit, or delete a welcome message for your group. See Add or change a group's welcome message. |
Enable additional Google Groups features | Select the option to make the group a Collaborative Inbox. See Make a group a Collaborative Inbox. |
Shared labels | Check the box to turn on the ability to label conversations for easier organization and search. See Turn on shared labels. |
Who can see group |
Choose an option for who can find the group by searching for the group’s name, email address, or conversations:
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Who can join group |
Choose an option:
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Allow external members |
Choose whether to allow people outside of your organization to become group members. This option appears only for groups you create from a work or school account, and only if your administrator enables the option to let group owners allow external members. |
Who can view conversations | Choose who can see conversations posted to the group. |
Who can post | Choose who can send messages to the group email address. |
Who can view members | Choose who can view the group's member list. |
Group content classification |
Choose whether the group content is suitable for everyone or adults only. If you choose adults only, you can’t change this setting later. This option appears only for groups you create in the public googlegroups.com domain. |
Member privacy
Setting | Description |
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Identification required for new members |
Choose the form of identity required for new members. |
Who can contact group owners | Choose which users can contact members with the owner role in the group. |
Who can view member email addresses | Choose which users can view member email addresses in the Groups UI. Email addresses might still be visible in other Workspace apps. |
Posting policies
Setting | Description |
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Allow Email Posting |
Check this box to let people post messages to the group. If you uncheck this box, people can't send messages to the group using the group's email address.
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Allow web posting | Check this box to let people send messages to the group using the Google Groups interface (groups.google.com). |
Conversation history |
Turn on conversation history so that members can view posts in Google Groups anytime.
Group owners and managers can turn the feature on or off for each of their groups.
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Who can reply privately to authors | Choose which users can privately reply to authors, as opposed to the whole group. |
Who can attach files | Choose which users can attach files, such as documents or photos. |
Who can moderate content | Choose which users can approve, block, and delete messages in the group. |
Who can moderate metadata | Choose which users can use Collaborative Inbox features. |
Who can post as group | Choose which users can post messages from the group's email address instead of their own email address. |
Default sender |
Choose the default address for messages sent from the group:
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Message moderation |
Choose whether to review and approve messages before sending them to the group:
To learn how to moderate messages, see Approve or block new messages. |
New member restrictions |
Choose the initial posting privileges for members when you add them to the group:
You can change these settings at any time for a given member. |
Spam message handling |
Choose how to handle messages sent to the group when the system marks them as spam:
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Rejected message notification | Choose whether to notify senders when messages are rejected instead of being delivered to the group. |
Email options
Setting | Description |
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Subject prefix |
Automatically add a prefix to the subject line of group messages. A prefix helps identify email from the group.
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Email footer |
Choose what appears in the footer of group email messages:
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Group email language | Enter the language to be used for system-generated information such as notifications and email footers. |
Auto replies |
Check the boxes to send automatic replies to incoming messages from group members or non-members inside or outside your organization. This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account. |
Post replies to |
Choose where replies to group posts are sent:
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Conversation mode |
Turn conversation mode on or off. Conversation mode determines what happens to new messages that share the exact same subject as an existing thread that has recent activity but aren’t sent as replies to that thread. When conversation mode is on, these types of messages are added to the thread as a reply. When this mode is off, these messages generate a new thread. If you turn conversation mode off, any messages already in a thread remain unchanged. Only new messages are affected. |
Member moderation
Setting | Description |
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Who can manage members | Choose who can add or remove members. |
Who can modify custom roles | Choose who can change permissions for group roles. |
Custom roles | Create and edit custom roles for your group. See Create or edit a custom role. |
Add people to your group
If you're a group owner, or if you have permission to manage members, you can add people to your group in three ways:
- Invite someone via email
- Add people to your group directly
- Approve people who applied to join your group
Note: Invitations expire after 7 days, but requests to join a group never expire. You can resend invitations if they expire.
Limitations on adding people to groups
- Maximum group members—A group can have unlimited members, so there’s no limit to the number of people you can invite, add directly, or approve to join a group.
- Child accounts—You can’t add a user with a child Google Account to a group through any method.
Invite someone via email
- Sign in to Google Groups.
- Click the name of a group.
- On the left, click Members.
- At the top, click Add members.
- At the bottom, next to Directly add members, click Turn off .
- Enter the email addresses of the people to invite.
- (Optional) To include an invitation message, enter a message.
- Click Send invites.
- To manage invitations:
- On the left, click Pending members.
- Take one of the following actions:
- To resend a single invitation, point to the invitationon the right, click Resend invitation . Invitations automatically expire after 7 days, but you can resend them any time.
- To cancel a single invitation, point to the invitationon the right, click Cancel invitation .
- To resend or cancel multiple invitations, check the boxes next to the invitationsabove the list on the right, click Resend invitation or Cancel invitation .
Add people to your group directly
When you add people directly, you can assign them the member, manager, or owner role.
- Sign in to Google Groups.
- Click the name of a group.
- On the left, click Members.
- At the top, click Add members.
- Enter the email addresses of the people to invite.
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(Optional) To add a welcome message to the email notification for new members, enter a message.
- Click Add members.
Approve people who applied to join your group
You can view requests to join your group and accept or deny them on an individual basis.
- Sign in to Google Groups.
- Click the name of a group.
- On the left, click Pending members.
- Take one of the following actions:
- To approve a single request, on the right of the request entry, click Approve request .
- To reject a single request, on the right of the request entry, click Reject request .
- To accept or reject multiple join requests, check the boxes next to the requestsabove the list on the right, click Approve request or Reject request .
View all members of a group
You can view all group members as well as people who have been banned from a group.
- Sign in to Google Groups.
- Click the name of a group.
- On the left, click Members.
- To view people who have been banned from the group, on the left, click Banned users.
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