Google Apps

Setup

Configure email settings for an organizational unit

The General Settings tab on the Email Settings page enables you to configure domain-wide email settings, as well as customize settings for specific organizational units -- or groups of users.

Note: Before you can customize your email settings for specific organizational units, you first need to add organizational units and create an organizational structure.

To configure email settings for your domain or organizational unit:

  1. Sign in to the Google Admin console. 
  2. Do one of the following:  
  3. In the Organizations section near the top of the page, highlight your domain or the organizational unit for which you want to configure settings.
  4. Scroll down to configure your email settings (see below for details and more instructions).
Inherited versus locally applied email settings

A setting is labeled as Inherited if it was inherited from a higher-level organizational unit, or from a domain-level setting. A setting is labeled as Locally applied if it was configured at the same level from which you are viewing it. Settings that are not yet locally applied or inherited are labeled as Not configured yet. 

Note: Some settings on the General Settings tab are not configurable at the organizational unit level, and can only be configured at the domain level. These domain-level-only settings are specified in the sections below.
Email Setting descriptions

The General Settings page is divided into the following sections: Setup, End user settings, End user access, Spam, Compliance, and Routing. See below for more details.

Setup

  • Web address (domain level only) - Enables you to change the URL for your users' Gmail login page.
  • MX records (domain level only) - Displays your MX records.
  • User email uploads (domain level only) - Allow users to upload mail using the Email Migration API.
  • Uninstall service (domain level only) - For guidelines, see Disable your email service.

End user settings

  • Themes - Specify whether or not users can choose their own themes.
  • Email Read Receipts - Specify whether or not users can request or return read receipts (see Enable read receipts).
  • Mail delegation - Let users delegate access to their mailbox to others in the domain.
  • Name format - Configure the name format for your users, or allow your users to customize this setting.
  • Apps search - Apps Search finds the most relevant Drive documents and Sites and displays them below Mail search results. You can enable or disable this setting.

End user access

  • POP and IMAP access - Disable POP and IMAP access for users (see IMAP and POP access).
  • Outlook & BlackBerry Support - Enable Google Apps Sync and Google Apps Connector for your users.
  • Automatic forwarding - Specify whether or not users can automatically forward incoming email to another address (see Disable automatic forwarding).
  • Offline Gmail - Enable offline Gmail for your users.
  • Outbound relay - Allow users to send mail through an external SMTP when configuring a "from" address hosted outside your email domains.

Spam

  • Email whitelist (domain level only) - An email whitelist is a list of IP addresses from which your users expect to receive legitimate mail (see Email whitelist).
  • Inbound gateway (domain level only) - If you have inbound mail gateways, use this setting to enter them (see Inbound gateway).
  • Blocked senders - Block or approve specific senders based on the email address or domain. (see Blocked senders setting).
  • Spam - Create an approved sender list to bypass the spam folder (see Spam setting).

Compliance

  • Email retention (domain level only) - Control the amount of mail that is stored for each user (see Email retention).
  • Restrict delivery - Restrict the email addresses your users can exchange mail with (see Restrict delivery).
  • Objectionable content - Specify what action to perform for messages based on word lists that you create (see Objectionable content setting).
  • Content compliance - Specify what action to perform for messages based on predefined sets of words, phrases, text patterns, or numerical patterns (see Content compliance setting).
  • Attachment compliance - Specify what action to perform for messages with attachments (see Attachment compliance setting).
  • Append footer - Configure outbound messages with footer text for legal compliance, or for informational and promotional requirements (see Append footer setting).
  • Secure transport (TLS) compliance - Require mail to be transmitted via a secure connection when users correspond with specific domains and email addresses (see TLS setting).

Routing

  • Email routing (domain level only) - This is a set of legacy routing controls for your domain. See Managing mail routing and delivery for guidelines and best practices before configuring your routing controls.
  • Outbound gateway (domain level only) - An outbound mail gateway is a server through which all mail sent from your domain passes (see Outbound mail gateway).
  • Receiving routing - Set up inbound and internal-receiving delivery options, such as dual delivery and split delivery (see Receiving routing setting).
  • Sending routing - Set up outbound and internal-sending delivery options (see Sending routing settings).
Use the Search settings box to enter a search term to quickly find the email setting you need. You can also type in a search, and then click a different organizational unit. This enables you to review how a particular setting is configured across organizational units.

Note: Email settings may take up to 1 hour to propagate to individual user accounts within the organizational unit.

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