As an admin for your organization, you can turn alerts on or off for messages that include external recipients. External recipients are people with email addresses outside of your organization. These alerts help people avoid unintentional replies, and remind them to treat external messages with caution.
When this setting is on, Gmail messages with external recipients display:
- A warning banner
- An image or colored border next to external addresses
When do warnings show
When this setting is on, Gmail shows warnings when:
- An email thread includes external recipients.
- Replying to a message from an external recipient.
- Composing a new message to an external recipient.
Gmail doesn't show a warning if the external recipient is in your organization's Directory, personal Contacts, or other Contacts. Warnings aren't displayed for secondary domain or domain alias addresses.
Turn external recipients warnings on or off
External recipient warnings are on by default. The setting to turn warnings on and off is available only for accounts that upgrade to Google Workspace.
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In the Google Admin console, go to Menu
AppsGoogle WorkspaceGmailEnd User Access.Requires having the Gmail Settings administrator privilege.
- (Optional) To apply the setting to a department or team, at the side, select an organizational unit.
- Scroll to and click Warn for external recipients.
- Check or uncheck the box to turn warnings on or off.
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Click Save. Or, you might click Override for an organizational unit.
To later restore the inherited value, click Inherit.
You can monitor settings changes in the Admin console. For more information, go to Admin audit log.
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