Google Groups Help Center

A Google Help Group is a place where product enthusiasts can find answers, ask questions, and share expertise with other users about specific Google products. While most of the content within these groups is authored by users like you, Google employees do jump in from time to time. Look for the blue "G" badge to find posts written by Google employees.

You can find Google Help Groups by searching in Google Groups or through the links located within some product Help Centers. If there's a Google Help Group for that product, a link for the group will appear in the Help Center. To visit the group, simply click that link and either search or browse the different topics.

To get you started, here are some basic instructions for using these groups:

Searching in a group

1. Within a group, find the search box at the top of the page
2. Enter your search terms
3. Click Search this group

Your search results will be pulled from the Help Group only. You can search all of Google Groups by clicking the Search Groups button.

How to post/How to reply

To post to a Google Help Group:

1. Sign in to your Google Account.
2. On the group's homepage, click the post your question button next to the appropriate category.
3. Enter your subject (you'll see related posts appear on the right. Click the blue subject lines to see if someone has already answered your question.)
4. Enter your question into the Message field. Be sure to provide details.
5. If you want a copy of your message sent to you via email, check the box next to "Send me a copy of this message."
6. Click Post message to send

Posts made within the group are visible to others, but your full email address isn't. If a group is new and/or there's little content, posting your questions and suggestions may be a great way to get the ball rolling.

To reply to an existing message:

1. Open the message.
2. Click the Reply link in the gray bar at the bottom of the message.
3. Enter your response.
4. Click the Send button. If you change your mind, click the Discard button

Note: if a message is more than 60 days old, you won't be able to reply.

How to subscribe to a topic

As most Google Help Groups don't allow you to receive an email for each message posted to the group, topic subscriptions might be a good way for you to keep track of topics of interest. You can subscribe to a topic and receive new replies via email without joining the group. To subscribe to a topic, you must be logged in to Google Groups.

1. Click a message title to open the topic.
2. Click the Options link in the gray bar with the topic title.
3. Click either the white envelope icon or the Email updates to me link to subscribe.

Once you've subscribed, the icon will become yellow and the link will change to "Cancel my email updates." Any new messages that are posted to the topic will then be emailed to you. To cancel your subscription, click the icon or the Cancel my email updates link.

How to find your own posts later

To find articles you've posted, you can use the author operator.

1. In the search box, type the word "author" and a colon, followed by your posting email address. For example if you're looking for posts you made from yourname@example.com, type [ author:yourname@example.com ].
2. Click the Search this group button to look for your posts in this Help Group.
3. Alternatively, click the Search Groups button to look for all posts you've made in any Google Group.

You can use this same method to search for posts by other authors. If you know the posting email address, use that because it's the most accurate. However, you can use the same author operator to search for posts by nickname. For example, if you know someone who's nickname is JoJo, you can search for their posts by typing [ author:JoJo ].