Get started with Groups

Create a group

Next: Create and respond to conversations

Email people with a single address, work on projects together, organize meetings and events, and more.

In this section, you learn how to:

Create a group

Add people to your group

Create a group

Sign in to Google Groups.
At the top, click Create group.
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
Group name	Enter a name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines: Use up to 73 characters for the names. Use names that make it easy to identify the group’s purpose.
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: Email addresses can be up to 63 characters long. This limit doesn't include the domain portion of the address, such as @gmail.com. Some words are reserved and can't be used as email addresses. View reserved words. 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
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: Group members—If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has selected the option to allow group owners to hide groups from the directory. For details about the admin setting, see Hiding groups from non-members. Organization members—This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account. Anyone on the web—If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has selected the option to make groups public.
Who can join group	Choose an option: Only invited users—People have to be invited to join the group. They can't add themselves directly or ask to join. Anyone in the organization can ask—People in your organization can ask to be added to the group. This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account. Anyone in the organization can join—People in your organization can add themselves to the group. This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account. Anyone can ask—Anyone on the web can ask to be added to the group. If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has set the option to let group owners allow external members. Anyone can join—Anyone on the web can add themselves to the group. If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has set 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.

Adding members

Option	Description
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: Delete the group. Make another member an owner. Change an owner’s role or subscription settings. 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: Delete a group. Make another group member an owner. Change another owner’s settings. Export group messages using Google Takeout. 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: Can remove—Post messages or add, invite, or approve new members. Cannot remove—View members or conversations or contact other owners. 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: Each email Digest Abridged None 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: On—Specified users are added to the group with the subscription settings you select. Members can change their subscription settings later. Off—Specified users receive an email invitation to join the group. They're added to the group only after they accept the invitation.

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
Group name	Enter a name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines: Use up to 73 characters for the names. Use names that make it easy to identify the group’s purpose.
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: Email addresses can be up to 63 characters long. This limit doesn't include the domain portion of the address, such as @gmail.com. Some words are reserved and can't be used as email addresses. View reserved words. 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: Group members—If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has selected the option to allow group owners to hide groups from the directory. For details about the admin setting, see Hiding groups from non-members. Organization members—This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account. Anyone on the web—If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has selected the option to make groups public.
Who can join group	Choose an option: Invited users only—People have to be invited to join the group. They can’t add themselves directly or ask to join. Organization users only—People in your organization can add themselves to the group. This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account. Organization users can ask—People in your organization can ask to be added to the group. This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account. Organization users can join, anyone on the web can ask—People in your organization can add themselves to the group, and anyone on the web can ask to be added to the group. This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account and your administrator has set the option to let group owners allow external members. Anyone on the web can ask—Anyone on the web can ask to be added to the group. If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has set the option to let group owners allow external members. Anyone on the web can join—Anyone on the web can add themselves to the group. If you’re signed in to a work or school account, this option appears only if your administrator has set the option to let group owners allow external members.
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
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
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.
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. On—Members who choose to get email updates can read and respond to posts using Google Groups online, email, or both. If they opt out of email updates, they can access posts online. Off—Group members can access old posts (those added to the history before the feature was turned off) online. New posts aren’t included in the history. Group members who get email updates can read and reply to them through email. Users who opt out of email updates can access existing posts but can’t see new posts.
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: Author's address—Best for discussion groups. Group address—Best for groups where many people are responding on behalf of the group, such as product support groups.
Message moderation	Choose whether to review and approve messages before sending them to the group: No moderation—Post messages as they are received without reviewing them. Moderate messages from non-members—Review and approve messages from non-members before sending them to the group. Moderate all messages—Review and approve all 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: No posting restriction for new members—Let new members send messages to the group without requiring moderation. New member posts are moderated—Review and approve messages sent by new members before posting them to the group. New members cannot post—Prevent new members from sending messages 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: Reject all messages marked as spam—Don't deliver any messages marked as spam to the group. This option is the tightest level control for spam. Some legitimate messages might be marked as spam and rejected. Moderate and notify content moderators—Send messages marked as spam for review and notify any members with the Who can moderate content permission. Moderate without notifying content moderators—Send messages marked as spam for review without notifying content moderators. Post suspicious messages to the group—Deliver messages marked as spam to the group. This option appears only if you’re signed in to a work or school account.
Rejected message notification	Choose whether to notify senders when messages are rejected instead of being delivered to the group.

Email options

Setting	Description
Subject prefix	Automatically add a prefix to the subject line of group messages. A prefix helps identify email from the group.
Email footer	Choose what appears in the footer of group email messages: Include the standard Groups footer—Includes a link to the message on groups.google.com and subscription settings, if applicable. You must have access to Google Groups on the web to view the message from the link. Include a custom footer—Includes text you specify, such as legal notices and information about your organization. There is a 1,000-character limit, and you can add text only.
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: All group members Group managers only Group owners only The author of the original message only A recipient that the sender chooses A custom address you specify
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
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:
1. On the left, click Pending members.
2. 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.
(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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