Group addresses in use

Every Google group has an email address, and in Google that address can only belong to one thing. If something else already uses it, Google refuses to create the group — and then refuses every attempt to add a person to it.

The most common shape of this is a group and a mailbox wanting the same name: a Reception group and a reception@ mailbox, or a Safeguarding group and a safeguarding@ address. Both are perfectly reasonable; they just can't share one address.

This does not fix itself. Each night the sync checks whether the address has been freed, but it doesn't try to add anyone to the group until it has — those adds could only fail. Everyone waiting is added once the address is free.

How to spot it

In the sidebar open Google Workspace → Groups, then select Group addresses in use at the top right of the page (you need sync settings permission). Each group that's stuck is listed with the address it wants, what's currently using that address, and how many people are waiting to be added. The page is empty — "No group addresses are stuck" — when every group at the school has an address of its own; groups appear after a sync has tried and failed to create them, and drop off once they exist. In MAT overview the page asks you to switch to a school first.

You may also meet it on the Logs page, where an affected row reads "the group's email address already belongs to something else", and a nightly row reads "Adds skipped for … member(s): … group address(es) are held by another account" — that's the sync deliberately not trying, not a new problem.

The three lists

Needs a decision — the address belongs to an account at your school, either as that account's own address or as a second address on it (the Used by column says which, and marks a Suspended account). Two names want the same address and one of them has to change. Either fix works, and each has a button on the row:

• Rename the account (Open the account). Open the account and give it a different address. Anything sent to the old address stops arriving, so tell whoever uses it first.
• Rename the group (Rename the group). Open the group and change its name. The group is then created under the new address on the next sync.

(Open the account only appears when the account is one of your school's users. If it isn't, only Rename the group is offered.)

Clearing on its own — someone had made a personal Google account using a school address. The sync takes that address back automatically, and the group is created on the next sync. Nothing for you to do.

Being checked — Google turned the group down and we're still working out what's using the address. These move to one of the lists above by themselves.

After you've fixed one

Nothing needs re-running. The next nightly sync creates the group, everyone who was waiting is added over the following night or two, and the group disappears from this page. If it's still listed a day later, the address is probably still in use somewhere — check the account you renamed still doesn't hold the old address as a second address.

If everything is listed at once

A page full of stuck groups usually isn't a name clash — it's the sync's own Google account having lost permission to manage groups. Check Google Workspace → Settings (the Admin user is still a super administrator and the domains are right) and run Sync status → Test connection — see Test connection / Test permissions. If many groups fail in one run, the sync stops checking each address and logs "More than N group addresses answered 403 forbidden in one run … check the sync admin account first."