Google group emails list bouncing back from outside domain

If your email distribution list in Google G Suite is not receiving emails from outside emails, here is your fix.

It’s not the easiest concept to understand. Google Groups in G Suite seems to make setting up an email distribution list quite difficult. It’s easy to set it up so that it works internally i.e when Bob in accounts is emailing Mary in marketing. Getting email from an outside domain takes a few more tweaks in the group settings.

So, just to start by saying if your not getting emails from external email accounts to your email distribution lists, this will fix you. Read on.

A typical scenario is setting up an email address on your website or printing it on your marketing materials that goes to an internal distribution list. e.g. Your website contact form or contact us page might have your email contactus@yourbusinessdeets.com.

When a customer or supplier emails that email address from outside the company you want it to hit your google group and be distributed to everyone in the group, or on that list (google calls it groups, not lists or distribution lists which is half the problem),

So, if you’ve set up a google group in your business GSuite account and you tested it from your internal email address it probably worked fine, so you moved on to other things. What you might not have tested was sending an email from an external email address, outside your work domain. This is the key step!

If you’re wondering why no-one is emailing you, this is the fix you need in your google groups:

Step 1:

Login to your admin.google.com account and select Groups

Step 2:

On the next screen select the group you want to edit. Just click the name.

Step 3:

Click the Settings panel which is most likely the bottom pane.

Step 4:

If you haven’t customised anything in your google group then you can set this panel to Public to start from a clean slate. If you have customised your group then leave it set to Custom and skip this step.

Step 5:

This is the money shot. The fix you need. The tweak to make your emails…flow from external domains…

In the same settings panel as the step before tick this box highlighted below. This will mean people emailing your group / distribution list from the outside world will actually get through. One tick box, job done.

In google groups land the External column includes ‘Publish posts’ which really means ‘Send emails to a distribution list email and have it work’.

Note: You don’t need to go any further with the links at the bottom. These won’t help your emails find their internal home.

Hopefully this little fix is all you need to believe that gmail groups might be worth persevering with after all.

Any questions just stick them in the comments box below and I’ll do my best.