How to Make a Google Group

Google Groups can be used both as a form of mailing lists and in place of a generic email account (to learn more about this option, check out this Knowledge Base article). The following step-by-step instructions will show you how to create on. Additionally, here are some of the key benefits of using a Google Group:

• Email everyone in a group with the same email address
• Organize meetings, conferences, and events
• Manage users within your department without contacting IT
• Assign levels of authority regarding access

Creating a Google Group

1. Navigate to your TCNJ Google account from the "Google Apps" link on today.tcnj.edu
   
2. From click the icon that is a 3x3 grid of dots in the top-right corner and select "Groups"
   
3. In the top-left corner of the Google Groups page, click "+ Create Group"
   
4. Create a name for your Google Group in the dialogue box that appears
   
   • As you type in a group name, the Group Email field will start to fill in automatically. You can either leave this be, or delete it and create your own custom name for the Group
   • If this Group will be used in place of a generic email account for more official correspondence you can request that your group be made by IT without the -group portion of the email address by filling out the following service request
5. Next, you will be asked to set the initial privacy settings of your Google Group
   
   • Who can search for group: If you are using your group as a mailing list, this setting will determine how public the group is for people to know it exists
   • Who can join group: Based on the settings for who can search for your group, this will determine who can send a request to sign up for the group to receive messages from it
   • Who can view conversations: From the Google Groups section where you went to create this group, a person can see all groups they are a part of. depending on this setting, they can go to your group and see the messages sent out from there
   • Who can post: This setting will determine what level of member can send messages to/as the group that are then distributed to the members or sent to the collaborative inbox
     • If you are going to be using this as a generic email account, this setting needs to be set to "Anyone on the web"
   • Who can view members: Member privacy is important, so deciding what level of member can see who else is a member is very important to consider
6. Finally, you will be able to add members to be part of the group initially, including other managers and owners
   
   • If you plan to have non-TCNJ members in the group, you will not be able to add them to your group yet. Once the group is created, you can follow these steps to allow people outside TCNJ to be members
   • If you have a large group of people you planned on adding to the group right away, as long as the email addresses are separated by a space, it will recognize them all individually when you copy and paste the list
   • There are four different subscription types that you can apply to members. The one you choose here during creation will apply to all of the members you are adding initially
     
     • Each email: Each message is sent individually as they’re posted to the group
     • Digest: Up to 25 complete messages are combined into single emails and sent daily
     • Abridged: Summaries of up to 150 messages are combined into single emails and sent daily
     • No email: Members will not receive any emails from the group and need to instead check the group directly
       • This is usually the setting you will want to use for if you are going to be using the group as a generic email
     • You can change individual member's subscription type from the member list in the group later
7. You can change any of these settings later by going to the group after it has been created