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Some projects host their mailing lists on Google Groups, like this: http://groups.google.com/group/mojolicious

I'm an old-fashioned guy, and I don't like reading mail on the web. I would very much prefer to get these mails in my normal inbox (which is also not hosted by Google).

Is it possible to subscribe to Google Groups mailing lists like they're normal, non-Google-hosted mailing lists? If yes, how?

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  • 1
    Oops - voted to close for the wrong reason. That will teach me to read questions better. If this gets closed I will vote to reopen.
    – ChrisF ♦
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 13:03
  • I daresay this would be a better fit for Web Apps, since the real question seems to be "how do I set Google Groups to send the mail to my personal e-mail address." But since what appears to be a working solution has been posted, I won't touch it.
    – Pops
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 16:17

7 Answers 7

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Yes, just click in Join this group and choose your preferences. Then you're set

Edit: I'm sorry I've misread your question.

You could try this trick, paste in your browser URL bar:

http://groups.google.com/group/mojolicious/boxsubscribe?email=myid

Replace 'mojolicious' with the name of the group you want to join, and replace myid with the email address you want to use. You should get a confirmation email (I've just tried it and it works with hotmail)

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    this makes my google account subscribed. I don't use google mail. Have my own server, with my own domain.
    – depesz
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 14:47
  • I've corrected my answer =)
    – bbonamin
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 15:22
  • Looks like working. I'll wait with accepting the answer till I get the first mail form list, but so far I was able to subscribe. Where did you learn it?
    – depesz
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 17:34
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    that mojolicious group has the right config for another group I'm trying to set up, where individuals can subscribe to the group with whatever email they want. However when I try that with my own group I get a warning "unable to join group". Is there another option in the group settings to allow this? Also, last link is now dead.
    – Jangari
    Commented Jun 7, 2017 at 0:41
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    Unfortunately, this answer is as for now invalid. The Wolfer's answer is how it works for now.
    – user157778
    Commented Jun 20, 2017 at 9:54
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Procedure to join Google Groups without creating a Google account:

  1. Look for group email address in the heading of “Group email”, it will look like: Group email (Group Name)@googlegroups.com or visit the group web page on Google Groups, and click on “About this group”.

  2. Send an email to (Group Name)[email protected]. +subscribe is the key, which is appended to the end of group’s email address. (Group Name) is the name of the group. Space is substituted by “-” (hyphen).

Source. (gone)

Note: You should send the subscribing email from the email address which you want to receive the messages mailing. You may need to confirm the subscription request for some groups.

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    This desn't work for me. Even if I use my private address to send the mail to subscribe, google switch it to my google mail address forcing me thus to use google mail or the web interface to google groups.
    – chmike
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 8:31
  • @chmike i added a notice in my post. do you use webmail or a normal email client? maybe you have still google cookies in your browser, so google knows you have a google account (i don't have one). try to delete your cookies or a clean browser. if you get it working, please comment again here.
    – c33s
    Commented May 28, 2015 at 16:44
  • I used thunderbird to send the mail requesting a subscription. So the web browser and cookies shouldn't be involved. Apparently google finds my google mail address associated with my private address and subscribe me with my google address. Looking at other list members I saw that they all use a google mail address. Maybe I should try with an email address that isn't assiociated with google account. I want to use my private address because I use thunderbird and can't thus us the google address.
    – chmike
    Commented May 30, 2015 at 7:34
  • This approach worked fine for me, for a particular group. It may work for some groups and not others. Also, you might want to clean up your steps, they're a bit out-of-order and redundant (and the source is gone now).
    – duozmo
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 20:55
  • This still works.​​​​​​​
    – user57874
    Commented Nov 25, 2020 at 4:34
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Currently you can join at this URL:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/<groupname>/join

To leave the group, you can use

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/<groupname>/unsubscribe
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  • In 2024: Did not work for me, but this did.
    – BadAtLaTeX
    Commented Mar 24 at 23:59
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The most generic solution which should work for every address/mail provider and every Google group is send a mail to 

[Group Name][email protected]

[http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-subscribe-or-join-google-groups-without-google-account/ ]

Some Groups seem to be restricted to mails registered to the Google account. An example is the orient-database group - visiting

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/orient-database/join

won't let you choose an arbitrary address. I could only add one alternative address besides my Gmail address, so adding addresses to the Google account isn't a solution.

EDIT 1: The secret is that one can subscribe to any google mailing address with an address unknown to google when logged out (the first time you log out, google logs you in, just be insistent)

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If you ever involve a web browser in the process (that is logged in to your Google account) then Google will ignore the address that you chose to sign up with and sign up your Google account instead. Which is obnoxious. It is possible to avoid this, though.

  1. As others have suggested, subscribe by sending an email to [email protected] from the address that you want to be subscribed (note that the domain may be different in some cases where Google Apps is in use).

  2. You will receive an email asking you to click to confirm. Do not do that, as then you'll find the subscribing email address changed to that of your Google account. Instead, reply to the confirmation email. It doesn't matter whether your replay has any content.

  3. Then you should receive a further email, to your chosen address, saying that you are subscribed.

At this point you probably can't change any options, etc., via the web interface. You can unsubscribe using the same procedure with [email protected] but I don't know what, if any, other options are available.

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  • Only answer that worked for me in 2024. Thank you!
    – BadAtLaTeX
    Commented Mar 24 at 23:59
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If all else fails, you could try writing to the group owners, at https://groups.google.com/d/contactowner/mojolicious (modify as appropriate), if the group owners have enabled that option.

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As you can subscribe to the mailing list using your Google Account, and therefore get these mails sent to your address associated with the Google account, you should be able to forward these messages by filtering the appropriate message subjects and sending these to the account you have outside of Google mail. If you look at the actual sender of these Google groups mails, you might be able to figure out a general rule for your filters, so you won't have to set a filter for every mail. It should work as a fine workaround imho.

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  • Hmm .. Adding filtering will work but only for receiving mails. I will not be able to send from my normal email address :(
    – depesz
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 14:47
  • You can get around that as well. You can add a rule where you send an email to that specific google account and set it to be forwarded to a specific mailing list address. If you have more than one mailing list you are subscribed to like that, you could use these filters to look for a certain tag you put in your mail, if it finds it, send it to a specific address. I'm afraid that approach won't work in a generic way though.
    – private_meta
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 14:51