Turn Groups for Business on or off

As a Groups administrator, you control whether users can access your organization's internal groups at the Google Groups app--available in their App launcher  and at groups.google.com. You do this by turning the Groups for Business service on or off for their account, in your Admin console.

Turning on Groups for Business also adds features, such as for moderated conversations and Collaborative Inboxes. You can then set organization-wide policies for creating, accessing, and working in groups at Google Groups.

 Help me decide: Compare features: On vs. Off

Turn Groups for Business on or off

Before you begin: To turn a service on or off for certain users, put their accounts in an organizational unit (to control access by department) or add them to an access group (to allow access for users across or within departments).

1. Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.

   If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.

2. Go to Menu  Apps > Google Workspace > Groups for Business.

   Requires having the Service Settings administrator privilege.

3. Click Service status.

4. To turn a service on or off for everyone in your organization, click On for everyone or Off for everyone, and then click Save.

5. (Optional) To turn a service on or off for an organizational unit:

   1. At the left, select the organizational unit.
   2. To change the Service status, select On or Off.
   3. Choose one:
      • If the Service status is set to Inherited and you want to keep the updated setting, even if the parent setting changes, click Override.
      • If the Service status is set to Overridden, either click Inherit to revert to the same setting as its parent, or click Save to keep the new setting, even if the parent setting changes.
        Note: Learn more about organizational structure.
6. (Optional) To turn on a service for a set of users across or within organizational units, select an access group. For details, go to Use groups to customize service access.

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

What happens if you...

Have existing Admin console groups

After you turn on Groups for Business, any groups that you already created in your Admin console become available in users' Groups directory at Google Groups. Which groups a user sees depends on the group's visibility settings. It might take up to 24 hours for the groups to appear. Your existing groups keep their current sharing settings.

Turn Groups for Business Off

If you turn off Groups for Business:

• Your organization's groups aren't available at Google Groups—As a result, you can’t access features such as:
  • Group conversation history
  • Member and subscription settings
  • Settings for group email footers, subject line prefixes, and message moderation
• Existing groups aren't deleted—Groups that you or your users created remain in your Google Workspace account. People who have permission to post to the group can still do so through email. To prevent the use of a group, you must also delete it.
• You can still access groups in the Admin console—As an administrator, you can still access all your organization's groups in your Admin console.

Turn Groups for Business back On

If you later turn Groups for Business back on:

• Your organization's groups are restored at Google Groups—You and your users can access advanced settings for your groups at groups.google.com. 
• Deleted groups aren't restored—If you delete any groups after turning off Groups for Business, those groups are not restored.
• Access to conversation history is restored—For groups that had conversation history turned on, the history includes group messages that were posted when Groups for Business was off. Turning Groups for Business off or on doesn’t affect whether messages are stored in the history. However, users can access the message history only if Groups for Business is on.

Next steps

• Set organization-wide policies for using groups