The Microsoft 365 system allows multiple options for group communications, depending on what works best in each scenario and for your purposes. Generic, “titled”, or special-need email addresses can be configured as any of the following:
- Microsoft 365 Groups that are used for collaboration between users, both inside and outside your company. They include collaboration services such as SharePoint and Planner, with dedicated storage and communication spaces for the group. Mail sent to these addresses notifies each member of the group separately, but without sending a copy of the message to each user.
- Use Cases: Project groups, teams or committees, system monitoring and notifications.
- Distribution groups that are used for sending email notifications to a group of people. These groups simply “forward” incoming mail to everyone on the list, with each person receiving a separate copy.
- Use Cases: System-wide notifications, newsletters, alerts and notifications which users may want to reference even if they don’t immediately need to react.
- Shared mailboxes that are used when multiple people need access to the same mailbox, such as a department information or shift email address. The messages sent to these addresses is separated in a designated mailbox, so once someone reads or responds, everyone in the group will see the message as read or see the response.
Microsoft 365 Groups
Microsoft 365 Groups are used for collaboration between users, both inside and outside your company. With each Microsoft 365 group, members get a group email and shared workspace for conversations, files, and calendar events, Stream, and a Planner. Microsoft 365 Groups can also be connected to Teams or Viva Engage.
You can add people from outside your organization to a group as long as this feature is enabled by the administrator. You can also allow external senders to send email to the group email address.
Microsoft 365 Groups can be configured for dynamic membership in Microsoft Entra ID, allowing group members to be added or removed automatically based on user attributes such as department, location, title, etc.
Microsoft 365 Groups can be accessed through mobile apps such as Outlook for iOS and Outlook for Android.
Group members can send as or send on behalf of the group email address if this feature is enabled by the administrator.
If recipients subscribe to receive group conversations in their inbox, they can delete email messages from the group without removing those messages from the group’s shared mailbox. And, if an email is deleted from the group’s shared mailbox, it isn’t deleted from group members’ personal inbox. See Who can delete email from the Group inbox.
Microsoft 365 Groups can be added to one of the three SharePoint groups (Owners, Members, or Visitors) to give people permissions to the site.
Distribution groups
Distribution groups are used for sending notifications to a group of people. They can receive external email if enabled by the administrator.
Distribution groups are best for situations where you need to broadcast information to a set group of people, such as “People in Building A” or “Everyone at Contoso.”
Microsoft 365 Groups can’t be members of distribution groups.
Shared mailboxes
Shared mailboxes are used when multiple people need access to the same mailbox, such as a company information or support email address, reception desk, or other function that might be shared by multiple people.
Shared mailboxes can receive external emails if the administrator has enabled this feature.
Shared mailboxes include a calendar that can be used for collaboration.
Users with permissions to the shared mailbox can send as or send on behalf of the mailbox email address, if the administrator has given that user permissions to do that. This feature is especially useful for help and support mailboxes, because users can send emails from mailbox names like “Contoso Support” or “Building A Reception Desk.”
It’s not possible to migrate a shared mailbox to Microsoft 365 Groups.
