Google Workspace Group Email Reply Settings: How to reply to the group or just the sender of the group in Gmail

Gsuite: Groups for Business, Gmail

Note: This post is for those who have Gsuite admin permissions. 

GSuite groups are a great bulk email tool. They can be used:

• To send announcements to a group.
• As a collaborative email for teams to communicate with each other.
• As an internal or public facing support email.
• To send emails and notifications to groups that may require a response only to the sender.

Surprisingly, all these reasons for using group emails all have different priorities and expectations for receiving and replying to emails.

For example, if you are primarily sending announcements using the Google Group email, then you want to limit the ability to reply. Alternatively, if you want to use the group email as a collaborative tool, then all members of the group need to quickly reply back to all members of the group rather than just the author of the email.

If you are using a group as a support email like support@yagisanatode.com, then you want all people on the support group to see when you respond to a message so that you are not double-handling your replies. That means you want to be able to reply easily to a non-group member and your team simultaneously.

Finally, if you are using the group email to send notifications to group members who can either reply to the group or to the sender, then you want the group member to be able to quickly switch between these options. This is usually the default setting.

Fortunately, Google Groups can help you with this, though, setting up can be a little tricky to navigate.

While there are some basic tools for setting up your groups from the GSuite admin console, the real power of setting up a group comes from the Groups for Business App.

Activate Groups for Business

If you haven’t done so already, you will need to activate Groups for Business. To turn Groups for Business on, log into your admin console. In the search bar type:

Groups for Business

Select Settings for Groups for Business.

Alternatively, click the Apps icon > Gsuite > find and Groups for Business.

In the top right click EDIT SERVICE.

 

Select On for everyone and hit save.

Accessing Email Reply Editing

In the admin search bar type in the name of the group that you want to edit the reply type for. For example, test@yagisanatode.com. Select the group.

You will be navigated to the selected group information page. On the right click the expand button next to the Setting title.

This will open the settings menu.

Scroll to the bottom of the Setting and click the advanced settings link.

Alternatively, you could go to groups.google.com and search for your group > select the group > Got to the setting cog (top right) > Group Settings.

On the left side, you will a menu panel click Settings > Email options. Scroll down to the bottom of the main panel until you find the heading Post Replies. 

Post Replies

Post Replies has a number of options. As the name suggests, these options come into effect once someone emails the group. The options are as follows:

• To the entire group -This automatically replies to the whole group.
• To the author of the message only – This replies only to the person who originally sent the email.
• To the owners of the group – Replies are sent to the owner/s of the group only.
• To the managers of the group – Replies are sent to the manager/s of the group only.
• Users decide where their replies are sent – When the user replies, they can select “Reply” to just send to the author of the message or “Reply All” to send to the author and the rest of the group.
• Use a custom address to send replies to – A designated email address can be provided.

Once you have updated the email post replies to match the requirements of the group. Hit save at the top left of the Groups bar.

That’s it. You are done. You have successfully changed the nature of email replies for your Google Group. Go ahead and send a test email to your group to make sure it is working correctly.

 

~Yagi