Reading time: 7 min · Last verified: August 2026 · SMTPedia editorial team
Ask for a group of emails and you can get four different objects. Gmail and Outlook both offer something they call a group, they are not the same thing, and only some of them exist as a real address on a mail server. Picking the wrong one is how a team ends up sharing one password, or how a newsletter goes out through a system that was never built to carry it.
This page separates the four, then covers the part the setup guides leave out. A group address does not simply receive your message: it sends it again, once per member, and that second send is what your authentication records get judged on.
A group email address is one address that fans a message out to a list of members. An alias is a second name for a single mailbox. A shared mailbox is one mailbox that several people open. A contact label is a shortcut in your own address book. Three of the four live on the mail server. Only the group address re-sends the message, and only the group address changes what SPF, DKIM and DMARC see.
The Four Things People Call a Group of Emails
The vocabulary is genuinely inconsistent between providers, which is why the same request produces four different answers. Sort them by what happens to the message, not by what the menu calls them.
One address, many members
Mail sent to team@ is accepted once, then delivered again to every member. Also called a distribution list or a group. This is the only object that re-sends.
A second name for one mailbox
The address is added to a user who already exists. Nothing is copied, nothing is re-sent, and there is exactly one person behind it.
One mailbox, several keys
The message is stored once. Each member opens the same folder with their own credentials, so you can tell who read it and who answered.
A shortcut in your address book
It expands into individual recipients before the message leaves your client. Nothing exists on the server, and every recipient sees the whole list.
Which one you actually need
| What you want | The object | Where it lives | Who sees the members |
|---|---|---|---|
| One address a whole team receives on | Group address | Mail server | Members, and often only admins |
| A second address for one person | Alias | Mail server | Not applicable |
| Two people answering the same address without sharing a password | Shared mailbox | Mail server | Members |
| Emailing the same eight people once a month from your own account | Contact label | Your address book | Every recipient |
The second row has its own page, because aliases are the object people reach for when they wanted one of the other three: what an email alias routes, and what it does not. If more than one person needs to see what arrives, an alias is the wrong tool and no amount of configuration fixes that.
How Mail Actually Reaches a Group Address
Everything that makes group addresses awkward comes from one fact: the address does not hold mail, it forwards it. Your message arrives at the list, the list accepts it, and then the list starts a fresh delivery to each member.
One send in, many deliveries out
A message to a fifteen member group produces one delivery you can see and up to fifteen you cannot. Each of those is a separate transaction with its own result, so a single entry in your Sent folder can sit on top of fourteen successes and one failure. Nothing in your mailbox tells you which.
Group addresses also tend to use the generic names that filters treat with suspicion. team@, info@ and support@ are the usual choices, and they carry a reputation problem of their own: how verification services and filters handle role based addresses is worth reading before you put one on a signup form.
A list that behaves properly marks what it sends. The List-Id header specified in RFC 2919 gives a list a stable identifier that recipients can filter on, which is why a well run internal group is easy to file and a badly run one is indistinguishable from bulk mail.
What the resend does to SPF and DKIM
This is the section the provider documentation does not have, and it is the reason messages sent to a group sometimes fail authentication on the way out of it.
SPF is checked against the sending server. The list re-sends from its own infrastructure. If the envelope sender were left as yours, the check would run against your domain and the list’s IP address, which your record does not authorise. Most list software avoids that by rewriting the envelope sender to the list itself, which moves the SPF check onto the list’s domain.
DKIM survives only while the signed material is untouched. A subject tag, an appended footer, a rewritten link: any change to signed headers or the signed body invalidates the signature. When the signature breaks and SPF now points at the list rather than at the address in the From field, DMARC alignment has nothing left to hold on to.
The protocol answer to this is a header chain that records what each intermediary saw before it made its changes: ARC, the Authenticated Received Chain defined in RFC 8617. It does not repair a broken signature. It gives the final receiver a way to trust the verdict reached earlier in the path.
Plain forwarding has the same failure mode without the fan out, and the mitigations overlap: forwarding setup, sender rewriting and the DMARC pitfalls that come with it.
When one member address dies
Because each member is a separate delivery, one departed colleague produces one rejection while everyone else receives the message normally. The bounce goes to whoever the list names as its return address, which is usually an administrator who is not reading it. A group that nobody prunes accumulates dead addresses quietly, and every send keeps hitting them.
The rejection you will see for a member who no longer exists is documented in the code directory: 550 5.1.1 user unknown, what causes it and how to clear it. Reviewing group membership when someone leaves is unglamorous and it is the whole of the maintenance.
Creating a Group Email Address
The click paths change with every interface refresh, so what follows is the shape of the operation rather than a menu by menu transcript. Both vendors document the current steps themselves, and both offer more than one thing under the word group.
Google: a group, or a label
Google Groups creates a real address. You name the group, choose the address, and set who is allowed to post to it and who is allowed to see the member list. An administrator can also create the same object from the Workspace admin console for an organisation. This is the version that receives mail and forwards it.
A Google Contacts label is the other thing, and it is not an address. You tag a set of contacts, then type the label name into the To field and Gmail expands it into individual recipients as you send. Nobody can write to the label, because there is nothing to write to.
Microsoft: groups in Outlook
Outlook creates a group from the Groups section of the sidebar: name it, add members, and the group gets a shared address along with a shared space for files and calendar events. Microsoft also keeps the older distribution list concept and the shared mailbox as separate objects, which is exactly where the confusion starts. If you need attribution on replies, the shared mailbox is the one you want.
Send a message from outside the organisation to the address you just made. If it arrives for everyone, you built a group address. If it bounces, you built a contact label and it only works from your own account.
A Mailing List Sign Up Is a Different Object Again
Search volume for mailing list sign up and for people wanting to sign up mailing lists comes from a different problem entirely: a public opt in, where strangers add themselves and expect to be able to leave. A distribution group is built for a known set of colleagues. Running a public newsletter through one goes wrong in three predictable ways.
No record of consent
A group stores membership, not when or how each person agreed to be there. A subscriber list has to store both.
Replies go to everyone
Broadcast is one way by design. A group is a conversation, and one careless reply reaches the entire audience.
No way out
Bulk mail is expected to carry an unsubscribe mechanism the recipient can use without asking anyone.
That last point is a requirement rather than a courtesy for anyone sending at volume, and it has a header of its own: List-Unsubscribe and one click unsubscribe, set up for bulk senders. If your sign up form feeds a group address, none of it is in place.
Getting off a list you did not choose to join
Coming from the other direction, the question is how do I get off of mailing lists, and the answer depends on which object is sending. Legitimate bulk mail exposes an unsubscribe link and, increasingly, a one click control your mail client shows for you. An internal group address usually has neither: there is no unsubscribe, because you did not subscribe. Somebody added you, and only an administrator can remove you.
The practical rule is to unsubscribe from anything that offers the option, and to ask rather than filter for anything that does not. Filtering an internal group to a folder keeps your inbox clean and leaves you on a list you are still counted as a member of.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a group of emails called?
If you mean one address that reaches several people, it is a group email address, a distribution list or simply a group, depending on the provider. If you mean several messages bundled together in your inbox, that is a conversation or a thread, which is a display feature rather than an address.
What are group emails used for?
Reaching a team without maintaining the membership in every sender’s address book. The value is that the list is kept in one place: when someone joins or leaves, nobody outside has to be told.
What is a mass email list called?
A subscriber list, a mailing list or an audience, and it is not the same object as a distribution group. A subscriber list records consent, sends one way, and carries an unsubscribe mechanism. A group does none of the three.
How do you create a group email in Gmail?
Two different ways, and they produce different things. Google Groups makes a real address that anyone can write to. A label in Google Contacts makes a shortcut that only works when you compose from your own account. Choose the first if the address has to receive mail.
How do you create an email group in Outlook?
From the Groups entry in the Outlook sidebar: create the group, name it, and add members. Microsoft keeps distribution lists and shared mailboxes as separate objects, so check which one the situation calls for before you create anything.
Is a group email address the same as an alias?
No. An alias is an extra name on one existing mailbox, so exactly one person reads what arrives. A group address has members and delivers a copy to each of them. If two people need to see the mail, an alias will not do it.
How do I get off of mailing lists?
Use the unsubscribe link or the one click control if the sender provides one, which bulk senders are expected to. For an internal group address there is nothing to unsubscribe from: ask the administrator to remove you, because filtering the messages away leaves you on the list.
The whole decision comes down to one question asked early: does this address need to receive mail from outside, and does more than one person need to see what arrives. Answer that first and the four objects stop being interchangeable.
About the Author
Alaa · LinkedIn
Email infrastructure specialist with 8+ years of hands-on experience in SMTP, deliverability, and email verification. I’ve configured and troubleshot mail systems across Postfix, Exchange, and cloud relays, managed IP reputation and warmup campaigns, and built verification pipelines processing millions of addresses. My work spans DNS authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI), bounce handling, blocklist monitoring, and compliance frameworks including CAN-SPAM and GDPR. I write every article on SMTPedia to give email professionals, developers, and marketers the accurate, RFC-grounded reference they need.
About SMTPedia
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