Email groups or Distribution Lists

Groups or Distribution Lists are common email addresses, shared by a set of users for a specific purpose. When an email is sent to the group account, a copy of the email gets delivered to the mailbox of all the members of the Group. You can decide who can send emails to the group or streamline the emails that go through using Moderation Settings and Permissions. 

Groups Overview

Groups are a set of users with a generic email address. A classic example can be the members of an organization's payroll team added to a single group with an email address associated with it (such as payroll@domain.com). An admin can decide who can send emails to the group or streamline the emails using the Moderation Settings and Permissions. Groups can be classified into two types:

Distribution Lists

A DL is a group of users with a single group email address. An user can be part of multiple groups, where each group will have a generic email address. The group members can post their messages through Streams if it is enabled by the admin. An admin can decide if a DL is with Streams or without Streams.

Not only the organization members, even external member's mail addresses can be added to a DL. When an email is sent to a DL, a copy of the email gets delivered to the mailbox of all the members of the group.

Shared Mailbox

Shared Mailbox is a group similar to a Distribution List (DL) that has a common email address shared by a set of users within your organization. Unlike DLs, external members cannot be added to a shared mailbox and it does not support streams. The emails sent to a shared mailbox do not appear in the individual user's mailbox thereby reducing email duplication.

Group Permissions

Zoho Mail offers different types of groups to fulfil different requirements of an organization. A group can have multiple members and moderators. After getting added by a Zoho Mail admin, the moderators of a group can add new members.

Public Email Groups (B2B/ B2C)

Public email groups are generic email addresses that can be accessed by anyone inside or outside the organization. When a group is set to Everyone, it allows anyone to send an email to the group address. This kind of group is ideal for roles that involve external communication like HR, PR, marketing, support, and so on where the group email address has to be exposed externally so that anyone can contact and communicate with the organization. 

For example, say your company has a sales team where your prospects send their queries. Instead of giving out an email address of a single person, you can create a public group sales@zylker.com and add all your client team as members. Now, a copy of any emails sent to the group will be forwarded to all the members of the group.

Organization Email Groups (C2E / E2C)

Organization groups are ideal for internal communication between the employees within your organization. Only users who are part of your Zoho Mail organization can send emails to this group. You can use this group for functions like housekeeping, payroll management, or any other function that require organization-wide transmission.

For example, say you want your employees to communicate with anyone on the HR team for easier redressal management. You can create an organization group address redressal-hr@zylker.com. With it being an organization group, only emails from your employees will reach the group member's inbox.

Closed/ Private Email Groups (G2G)

Closed groups are meant for communication within the members of the group itself. If one is not a member of the group (even if they are part of the organization), then they can't send an email to this type of group. These groups are meant for communication within teams—for setting up alerts, brainstorming, etc. You can also choose to moderate/reject emails that were sent by non-members of the group.

For example, your company's marketing team might want to communicate within themselves to maintain a blog calendar and more. You can create a private group marketing@zylker.com and facilitate communication within the team without external disturbances. 

Moderated/ Restricted Email Groups (C2E)

If you want the emails sent to a group to be monitored by someone before getting delivered to the group, you can create a Restricted group. You can customize these groups to directly accept emails from moderators/ certain members, whereas all other emails will be moderated. Zoho Mail Admins and group Moderators can check the emails received by the group and make sure only the legit emails are sent to the member's inbox.

You can have more customized Groups with permissions to send emails on behalf of the group email address, to allow certain members to send emails without moderation, add external members, and so on under the group's Advanced Settings.

Looking for a Shared Inbox solution for your team?Try TeamInbox by Zoho Mail, to make collaboration with your team efficient with shared inboxes.

Creating Groups

An email group with the provided details will be created.

Importing Groups

Import using CSV file

Import from Google Workspace

You can also choose to migrate the alias addresses of your group by checking Migrate email aliases along with group email address option.

Exporting Groups

Once done, your export will be scheduled. Upon completion, you will receive an email with the download link of the export file.

Other Options

Filter Groups

You can filter the email listing from the Groups page. Click on the Filter option from the top menu to narrow down the groups listing based on:

Delete Groups

You can either delete a single group or multiple groups from the Groups listing page. To delete a single group, hover over the group you want to delete and click the delete  icon.

You can delete multiple groups by selecting them and clicking the Delete button from the top menu.

Block/ Unblock groups

You can block the incoming and outgoing permissions of a group by selecting them and clicking Block. Similarly, select the groups with blocked permissions (you can also use the filter option "Blocked") from the listing and click Unblock from the top menu to allow incoming and outgoing emails for the group. 

Manage Columns

Email Group settings

You can view, manage, and modify other preferences of your group from the Settings page. Refer to this page for detailed instructions.