Why can't I add a Gmail account to my Google Apps group?

Question

I have a Google Apps account, and have a Group in it with a few members (9). None of those members are domain accounts—about half of them are "@gmail.com" accounts, and the others are from different domains.

Recently, I tried to add another "@gmail.com" account as a member, and it seems to just ignore me. I put in the address, click "Add", the page refreshes and the list of members has not changed.

I've also tried variations on the email address ([email protected], [email protected]) but that didn't help.

Is it possible that a specific Gmail account could be blocked, or could that user has a setting that would prevent them from being added to a group?

Answer 1

Users could block group managers from adding them to groups. There is a "My Global Settings" by domain.

For the googlegroups.com domain, the URL is

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!usersettings/general

For other other domains the URL looks like https://groups.google.com/a/domain.com/forum/#!usersettings/general

In both cases, the settings pages looks like the following screenshot:

Answer 2

In my case it appears the issue was that I first invited a user using his corporate account. He then requested I use his Gmail account instead. That address was then flagged by Google Groups as invalid. After going in and removing the corporate account I was able to invite the Gmail account; the two accounts were linked in Google with the corporate email set up as a secondary email for the Gmail account.

Answer 3

Try sending an e-mail to the address in question. If it bounces you might get a clue. Also, make sure the address has not already been added to the list and showing up on page 2 or greater. (Yeah, this happened to me once)

I noticed a similar case where, ultimately, I discovered I had misspelled the @gmail address. I suspect you can only add valid @gmail addresses, which is why your variations do not show up either.

Otherwise, I find no settings that can block people from adding my address to a distribution list.

What did it turn out to be?