February 23, 2026
New internal and external membership classifications for Google Groups
To ensure better data security, starting in Q2 2026, Google Groups will launch stricter internal and external classifications on group memberships. Groups with the Allow members outside your organization setting disabled will be limited only to members of your organization.
Currently, groups with the Allow members outside your organization setting disabled can still have external members (added via an admin, via a nested external group, or by changing the group from external to internal, which does not remove existing external members). After this change, this behavior will no longer be supported.
To prevent disruption, existing groups with the Allow members outside your organization setting disabled that currently include external members will be automatically updated to a new configuration. These groups will be reclassified as external, but configured so that only admins can add external users (preventing end users from doing so).
Additionally, this change will impact multiple UI and API areas within Google Workspace, including:
- Google Groups (and its usage in other apps like Gmail, Chat, and Calendar)
- Admin console
- APIs (Cloud Identity, Admin SDK Directory API, Groups Settings API)
Getting started
- Admins: If you use the Cloud Identity or Admin SDK Directory API to create new groups intended for external members, you may experience script errors if you don’t update your settings. Currently, Groups created via API default to allowExternalMembers=False and admins can add external members to these groups without triggering an error. When this new behavior goes into effect, if you attempt to add external members to a group classified as internal (the default setting), the API will reject the request and your script will return an error. We recommend updating your scripts using the GroupsSettings API now.
Rollout pace
- Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: This change will go into effect no earlier than May 15, 2026. We’ll provide an update on the Workspace Updates blog when we have more specific timelines.
Availability
- All Google Workspace customers
Resources
- Google Workspace Admin Help: Changes to internal & external classifications in Google Groups