---
title: Understanding Group Activity Email and File Sharing
description: "### Email and file-sharing group activity Groups inside Google are phenomenally interesting and at GAT we spend quite a bit of time thinking about them. - At a simple level, a group can act as an **email alias** for a…"
url: "https://gatlabs.com/knowledge/tech-tips/understanding-group-activity-email-and-file-sharing/"
updated: "2022-02-15"
category: "Email Audit & Management"
tags:
  - GAT+
---

# Understanding Group Activity Email and File Sharing

### Email and file-sharing group activity

Groups inside Google are phenomenally interesting and at GAT we spend quite a bit of time thinking about them.

- At a simple level, a group can act as an **email alias** for a function, ‘sales@generalaudittool.com’.
- A group can also form a platform for **email collaboration**, ‘new-ideas@generalaudittool.com’.
- It can also form the basis of a **mini-community**, ‘development@generalaudittool.com’, where the group name can be used as the basis for sharing documents, emails, access rights, etc.

In reality, any group once established, tends to function to varying degrees in all three roles inside the organization. In addition, you have the situation that members of one group are often members of other groups. Looking at the output of the members, you can never tell if the mail is group-related. How busy, in general, members of that group have been. Admin can view the**usage of this group** in terms of **Drive, Email,**and**Calendar** activity

GAT+ does a very comprehensive analysis of groups to find when they are **last used** OR next likely to be used. The results are sorted in the first column.

Navigate to **GAT+ → Groups → Last used address**

- Last Used
  - You will see some groups say '**In a year**' for last used.
  - This means they **have calendar appointments** to which groups have been invited for **up to 1 year in the future**.
  - **Removing** these groups **will remove** the **invites to the members**.
- File Use Date
  - Under**File Use Date**- the groups are used to share files to collections of users
- Email Use Date
  - Under **Email Use Date** - the groups are used to send emails to members of the group

![](https://gatlabs.com/knowledge/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-12-31-13_55_03-Window.png)

Apply filter and search for particular Group and see its details when and what was last used for.

### Group Email in Email audit

Check Group Email usage in the email audit.

Navigate to **GAT+ → Email → Group Statistics**

![](https://gatlabs.com/knowledge/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-12-31-14_10_56-Window.png)

Apply filter for a group and see how many Files and Emails were sent and received by the Group Email

### Group Email in Drive audit

Navigate to**GAT+ → Drive → Apply custom filter - **search for the Group

Fill in the details as below for example:

- **Type** - User/Group/OU search
- **Local user/Group email** - enter the Group email needed
- **Ownership** - owned
- **Updated** - enter if you want the latest "updated" documents used by members of the Group email

![](https://gatlabs.com/knowledge/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-12-31-14_17_17-Window.png)

### Result

The above ways will help an Admin find the **use** of a particular "**Group email**" in terms of **Email and Drive files** on their Google Workspace domain