What are Google Groups?

Google Groups are email lists that you can set up for personal use or for your team. They do a lot more than just forward emails. They can also act as shared inboxes where everyone can work together. Plus, they make it easy to give people access to Google Shared Drives and Calendar events all at once.

New groups will automatically end with .group in their email address (like applefans.group@lafayette.edu), but you can ask the Help Desk to take that part off. In the end, whoever owns the group gets to decide who is allowed to send emails to it.

How do I create a Google Group?

  1. Select the Groups icon from the “waffle” in the upper-right-hand corner of any Google Workspace application, and near the top-left, click Create Group.
    • Note: a manually created group will have “.group” appended to its name (e.g., myteam.group@lafayette.edu). If you’d like the “.group” suffix to be removed from your group name, please contact the Help Desk.
  2. Enter the info and settings for the group.
  3. Click Create Group.
    • Wait a few minutes for your new group to become active before sending a message to it or adding members.

See Google Group Roles and Permissions for more information on group membership and permission levels.

How do I manage the Group's settings?

The following settings can be accessed by clicking Group settings in the bottom left menu:

  • General: Change the group’s name, description, and email settings.
  • Posting policies: Determine who can moderate content and post to the group.
  • Email options: Set features to be included in every email.
    • A subject prefix: This helps identify messages as group emails by adding a prefix, e.g., [ITS-group], to the beginning of each email subject.
    • A footer: This can help users access subscription settings and find the post in Google Groups.
    • Auto replies: This allows you to respond automatically to members and non-members of the group.
  • Member moderationSet who can manage members and modify roles in the group.
  • Member privacy: Identify who can contact and view the group members.
  • Delete Group

What information is shared about my Group?

The About item, the last on the left menu, shows basic information about the group, such as the owners and privacy settings.

How do I add or remove members in my Group?

See Adding People to Your Google Group for more information.

Tagged in: