Create a group & choose group settings

If you're signed in to a work or school account, the options you see might be different. To learn more, contact your administrator.

Organizations, classes, teams, and other groups can use Google Groups to do things like:

Find people with similar hobbies or interests and host online discussions
Email each other using a group email address
Work on projects together
Organize meetings and events

You can do all this and more in new Groups and classic Groups.

Note: Some features are currently only available in classic Groups. Learn about new and classic Groups.

Instructions: New Groups | Classic Groups|Show all|Hide all

Create a group

Using new Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
In the upper left corner, 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 for new Groups

Group info

Option	Description
Group name	Name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines: Names can be up to 73 characters long. Use names that make it easy to identify the group’s purpose.
Group email address	Email address used for the group. If more than one domain is displayed, select the appropriate domain from the list. 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. For details, review Words that can't be used in email addresses and if you create the group at groups.google.com, review Understand 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	Purpose of the group or how it's used. The information appears on the group’s About page. 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 the group	Who can find the group by searching for the group's name, email address, or conversations. If you use Groups through work or school, the available options depend on the settings for your organization.
Who can join the 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. Organization users can ask—People in your organization can ask to be added to the group.
Who can view conversations	Select who can see conversations posted to the group.
Who can post	Select who can send messages to the group email address.
Who can view members	Select who can view the group's member list.

Adding members

Option	Description
Group members	The names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the member role. Everyone in a group has the member role. Any permissions that are set for the member role are automatically given to all other roles.
Group managers	The names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the manager role. Managers can do everything that owners can do except delete the group or make another member an owner. A group can't be a manager of another group.
Group owners	The names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the owner role. Members with the owner role have these permissions: Send messages to the group. Add or remove group members, including owners. Change a member's role (for example, from member to owner). Change group settings. Delete the group. Export group memberships and messages. Note: You can assign the owner role to any group member. However, a group can't have the owner role for another group.
Welcome message	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	A message sent to people in their email invitation to join the group. Invitees click a link in the invitation to join. This is available only if Directly add members is off.
Subscription	Preferences for receiving email from the group. Options include: All 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	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. If you turn Directly add members 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 for new Groups

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	Name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines: Names can be up to 73 characters long. Use names that make it easy to identify the group’s purpose.
Group email	Email address used for the group. If more than one domain is displayed, select the appropriate domain from the list. 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. For details, review Words that can't be used in email addresses and if you create the group at groups.google.com, review Understand 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***.
Description	Purpose of the group or how it's used. The information appears on the group’s About page. You could include information about group members, group content, an FAQ, links to related groups, and so on.
Who can see group	Who can find the group by searching for the group's name, email address, or conversations. If you use Groups through work or school, the available options depend on the settings for your organization.
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. Organization users can ask—People in your organization can ask to be added to the group.
Who can view conversations	Select who can see conversations posted to the group.
Who can post	Select who can send messages to the group email address.
Who can view members	Select who can view the group's member list.

Member privacy

Setting	Description
Identification required for new members
Who can contact group owners	Select which users can contact members with the owner role in the group.
Who can view member email addresses	Select which users can view the email addresses of group members.

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 Groups interface (groups.google.com).
Conversation history	If you have G Suite Basic or higher, you can keep posts in online forums so that members can view them anytime. You can turn the feature (message archiving) On or Off for each group: On—Members who choose to get email updates can read and respond to posts using the Google Groups online forum, email, or both. If they opt out of email updates, they can access posts online. Off—Old posts stay archived in the online forum, and group members can still access them. New posts aren’t archived. Group members who get email updates can read and reply to them through email. Those who opt out of email updates can access existing archived posts but can’t see new posts.
Allow users to edit their own posts	Let people change messages after they’re posted. To edit their own posts in a group, a user must have permission to view posts on the web for that group.
Who can reply privately to authors	Select which users can privately reply to authors instead of the whole group.
Who can attach files	Select which users can attach files, such as documents or photos.
Who can moderate content	Select which users can approve, block, and delete messages in the group.
Who can moderate metadata	Select which users can tag content or use Collaborative Inbox features.
Who can post as group	Select which users can post messages from the group's email address instead of their own email address.
Default sender	Select 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. Learn how to moderate 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—Choose this if you don't want any messages marked as spam to be delivered to the group. This is the tightest level control for spam. Some legitimate messages might be marked as spam and rejected. Moderate and notify content moderators—Choose this to send messages marked as spam for review and notify content moderators. Moderate without notifying content moderators—Choose this to send messages marked as spam for review without notifying content moderators. Post suspicious messages to the group—Choose this if you want messages marked as spam to be delivered to the group.
Rejected message notification	Choose whether to notify senders when messages are rejected instead of being delivered to the group.

Email

Setting	Description
Subject prefix	To identify email from a group, you can automatically add a prefix to the subject line of group messages.
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 Groups on the web to view the message from the link. Include a custom footer—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.
Auto replies	Check the boxes to send automatic replies to incoming messages from group members or non-members inside or outside your organization.
Post replies to	Select 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	Select whether to 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	Select who can add or remove members.
Who can modify roles	Select who can change permissions for group roles.

Using classic Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
In the upper left corner, 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.

Settings reference for classic Groups

Option	Description
Group name	Name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines: Names can be up to 73 characters long. Use names that make it easy to identify the group’s purpose.
Group email	Email address used for the group. If more than one domain is displayed, select the appropriate domain from the list. 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. For details, review Words that can't be used in email addresses and if you create the group at groups.google.com, review Understand 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	Purpose of the group or how it's used. The information appears on the group’s About page. You could include information about group members, group content, an FAQ, links to related groups, and so on.
Group's primary language	Email language used for system-generated information sent to group members, including content in email digests and footers.
Group type	The type of group you want to create. You can change the group type later: Email list—Members communicate with each other using a single email address. Web forum—Members use Google Groups or email to communicate with each other. Q&A forum—Members ask and answer each other's questions. Collaborative inbox—Members assign topics to each other and track topics as tasks.
Basic permissions	Permissions for: Group visibility: Who can see the group's email address and description. View Topics: Who can view topics in the group. Post: Who can post messages to the group. Join the Group: Who can join the group

Make your group a Collaborative Inbox or Q&A forum

Note: If you’re signed in from a work or school account, this feature requires Google Groups for Business. Q&A forums are only available in classic Groups and are planned for deprecation with the switch to new Groups.

Using new Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the left, click Group settings.
Under Enable additional Google Groups features, select Collaborative Inbox.

Using classic Groups

You can change your group type at any time to match your group’s communication style and workflow.

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the right, click Manage group.
On the left, click Information Advanced.
In the Reset group section next to "Select a group type," click the Down arrow .
Select a group type and click Reset this group.

Change your group’s name, description & email settings

Using new Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the left, click Group settings.
Under General, make your changes.
Click Save changes.

Using classic Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the right, click Manage group.
On the left, click Information General information.
Make your changes.
Click Save.

Set email options for your group

Using new Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the left, go to Group settingsEmail options.
At the top right, next to Advanced, click Turn on .
Set your email options:
- Subject prefix: Identifies email as messages from the group.
- Email footer: This helps users access subscription settings and find the post on Google Groups.
- Conversation mode: Shows messages in threads by subject instead of displaying each message separately as it's posted.
- Post replies to: Where replies to group messages are sent by default when replying by email. The option you select here automatically populates the "To" field when you reply to a message. You can manually change the recipients in the message itself.
Click Save changes.

Using classic Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the right, click Manage group.
On the left, click Settings Email options.
Set your email options:
- Subject prefix: Identifies email as messages from the group.
- Email footer: This helps users access subscription settings and find the post on Google Groups.
- Auto replies: This lets you respond automatically to members and non-members. This feature is only available in classic Groups, and it’s planned for deprecation with the switch to new Groups.
- Conversation mode: Shows messages in threads by subject instead of displaying each message separately as it is posted.
- Post replies: Where replies to group messages are sent.
Click Save.

Set how members display their identity

Using new Groups

You can allow members to post with a display name or require that each member be linked to their Google profile.

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the left, click Group settings.
On the left, click Group settingsMember privacy.
At the top right, next to Advanced, click Turn on .
Select one of the required forms of identification.
Click Save changes.

Using classic Groups

You can allow members to post with a display name or require that each member links to their Google profile.

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the right, click Manage group.
On the left, click Settings Identity.
Select one of the required forms of identity.
Click Save.

Set who can post, view topics, and join the group

Using new Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the left, click Group settingsPosting policies.
At the top right, next to Advanced, click Turn on .
Select the permissions that you want for your group.
Click Save changes.

Using classic Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the right, click Manage group.
On the left, click Permissions Basic permissions.
Select the permissions you want for your group.
Click Save.

Set who can manage members and roles

Using new Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the left, click Group settingsMember moderation.
Select the permissions that you want for your group.
Click Save changes.

Using classic Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the right, click Manage group.
On the left, click Permissions Moderation permissions.
Select the permissions you want for your group.
Click Save.

Change your own subscription settings

Using new Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
On the left, click My membership settings.
Under Subscription, choose an option:
- Each email—Messages sent individually as they’re posted to the group.
- Abridged—Summaries of up to 150 messages combined into single emails and sent daily.
- Digest—Up to 25 complete messages combined into single emails and sent daily.
- No email—Messages from the group are not sent.
To receive abridged summaries or digests of a group’s messages, you must turn on conversation history for the group.
Click Save changes.

Using classic Groups

Sign in to Google Groups.
Click My groups.
Click the name of a group.
At the top right, click My settings Membership and email settings.
In the membership settings window, choose an option in the Email delivery preference section:
- Don't send email updates: No email messages from the group
- Send daily summaries Up to 25 complete messages combined into single emails and delivered daily
- Send combined updates: Summaries of up to 150 messages combined into single emails and delivered daily
- Notify me for every new message: All messages emailed individually as they're posted to the group
Click Save.

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