To manage a Google Group, you must have created the group or been assigned as an owner of the Group. If you have not created the Group, submit a Google Assistance Request to have the Google Group created.


Each Google group has 3 roles: Owner, Manager, and Member (For more information on defining these roles, see the Google Groups help document). 

Do not change the permissions associated with each role, but feel free to add additional managers if needed.  By default, a Help Desk account (helpdeskgroupadm) is added as a Manager of each Google Group to provide better support. Additionally, ITS is set as the Owner of each group.

  1. Log in to your App State Google account and click on the grid in the upper right corner to select Groups. Alternatively, you can go directly to Google Groups by navigating to groups.google.com in a web browser.
    Locating Google Groups from the Google Workspace Apps Grid.

  2. Click My Groups and then click on the group you want to manage in the list of your available groups.
    Clicking on My Groups to manage your Groups.

    If you do not see your groups, you may have to switch to your App State account. To switch back and forth between your personal and App State accounts, click on the Google Apps icon grid in the upper right-hand corner and choose the account you want to view from the list.
    Switching to an App State account from a personal account

    You will see a list of management options in the sidebar menu on the left, located under your group’s name.
    Accessing Group Management Options in the sidebar menu.
  1. From your Groups homepage, click on the Group you want to view.
    Clicking on a group to view it.

  2. From the Group’s sidebar menu on the left, click About to see general information about your group. This will display your Group name, Group Email address (e.g. group-[name]@appstate.edu), group description, owners, your website URL, and your group’s privacy settings.
    Learning more about a group by clicking on the about tab.

You can add an unlimited number of people to your group. Up to 200 people can be added to a group at one time (10 for Gmail addresses).

  1. Navigate to groups.google.com.
  2. To add members to a group, (1) click My Groups, (2) click the three-dot icon in the row of the Group and (3) select Add members.
    Adding group members to you groups.

  3. Enter the email addresses of Gmail users you want to add. (To add group managers, turn on the “Directly add members” button (blue is on) and enter the addresses of those users in either the group manager or group owner text box.) You can also enter a welcome message (optional). When done, click Add members.
    ADding group members and delegating roles.

  4. Alternatively, you can click on the group name (which opens your group's sidebar menu on the left), under the People section click Members, and then click on Add members at the top of the page.
    Adding Group members from the Add Members button at the top of My Group.

From the group’s sidebar menu on the left, under the People section, you can view the associations of users connected to your group.

Click on Members to see a list of current group members. From this menu, you can adjust the roles of members individually or collectively, set their subscription type, and modify their posting permissions.
Seeing Current and Pending Group Members

Click on Pending members to see a list of users who have not accepted the group invitation yet. You can view the date they were invited, resend their invitation, or cancel their invitation.
Modifying pending members settings.

Click on Banned users to see a list of users that owners or managers of the group have banned. You can also ban users from this menu by typing their name or email address into the text box and clicking Ban users.
Seeing a list of banned members.

There are four group member tiers that offer varying levels of permissions:

  • Group owners
  • Group managers
  • Group members
  • Anyone on the Web
  • Anyone on the Web

Under Group settings, managers can modify the following settings:

  • Member privacy - Who can contact group owners and view member email addresses.
  • Posting policies - Allowing email replies or web posting to the group page.
  • A list of users who can reply privately to authors, attach files, moderate content, moderate metadata, or post as the group.
  • Email Options - Add a subject prefix to all emails, a custom footer, and change who receives replies.
  • Member moderation - Adding Members, approving members, approving messages, banning users, and more.
    Modifying group settings.

    Only Managers and Owners can adjust these settings by default.

From the Google Groups sidebar menu, under Conversations, click on Pending to new messages that need to be moderated and click the circled check mark to accept or the circled check mark to deny a post.
Pending Members Approval

To see a list of approved messages (1) click on“Approved under Conversations in the left sidebar menu. Here you can see all approved messages. You can select conversations to (2) Star, (3) mark as read, (4) Report, (5) Delete, or (6) Lock.

Approved members messages.

For a comprehensive list of group settings functionality, visit the Google Groups support page.


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