Starting September 15, 2025, Google Groups is changing how your users control who can manage and view group members. This means users might need to update their group settings to make sure the right people still have the right access.
What's changing
Custom roles configured for Who can manage members and Who can view members will no longer be supported. Additionally, the ability to allow the Entire organization to manage members will no longer be supported.
Timeline:
Starting July 2025, owners and managers of impacted groups will see a banner notifying them of the changes.
Starting September 15, 2025, users will no longer be able to:
- Add new custom roles for Who can manage members and Who can view members.
- Set Who can manage members to Entire organization.
Starting January 5, 2026, the following will no longer be supported:
- If a group has custom roles configured for the Who can manage members and Who can view members, those custom roles will be removed.
- If a group has Who can manage members set to Entire organization, that setting will be updated to all members.
There will be no change to custom roles for the following permissions:
- Who can modify custom roles
- Who can contact group owners
- Who can view member email addresses
- Who can reply privately to authors
- Who can attach files
- Who can moderate content
- Who can moderate metadata
- Who can post as group
What group owners need to do
For groups that use custom roles for Who can manage members and Who can view members, group owners will need to use the owner, manager, or member role to replace the current functionality of the custom role.
Example
A group has 2 owners, 3 managers, and 5 members. It currently has Who can manage members set to owners and also has a custom role where 2 additional members can manage members.
As of Jan 5, 2026, the custom role will no longer be available, so those 2 additional members will lose the ability to manage members.
To ensure those users continue to have the ability to manage members, group owners can do one of the following:
- Add the two users from the custom role as owners.
- Give all members the ability to manage members.
- (Recommended) Extend the ability to manage members to include both owners and managers and make the two users who were in the custom role managers.
FAQs
Will custom roles be impacted for any permissions other than “Who can manage members” and “Who can view members?”
No.
Will there be any in-product notification?
Yes, owners and managers of impacted groups will see a banner notifying them of the change.
How do I find out which groups are impacted at my domain?
We will send an email to all impacted organizations with a CSV including all impacted groups.
How are custom roles created today?
For detailed information, go to Create or edit a custom role.
