Project Email Is Moving to Group Mail — What You Need to Know
Effective: 11 May 2026 (decided at the May 2026 PSEC)
After a fair bit of back-and-forth at the May PSEC, we've made the call: PSEC is moving project email from CloudHQ shared labels to Google Groups. Three projects are already converted and running on the new system — K10, GE1, and K7. Historical emails for those projects have been loaded into their respective groups, so when you join a group you'll see the full project history from day one, not just emails from today onwards.
The rest of the active projects will roll over progressively. From today, please treat Group Mail as the default for project correspondence.
This post explains why we made the switch, how the new system works, and the handful of habits everyone needs to pick up.
Why We Switched
The short version: shared labels were fine when we had a handful of projects. They stopped scaling once we crossed multiple projects.
Specifically:
- Every incoming email had to be manually labeled. Miss one, and it never reached your colleagues.
- Replies to already-labeled threads weren't auto-shared — manual re-labeling every time.
- Sent emails didn't propagate at all — collaborators couldn't see what you'd sent unless you BCC'd them.
- Archived project labels piled up in everyone's account. Your label list grew with every project you'd ever touched.
- When a PM left or rotated, their labeled history went with them.
Google Groups fixes most of these structurally. Each project gets a shared mailbox that lives independently of any individual's account. New team members joining mid-project see the full history. Sent and received emails are both captured automatically when you do it right.
How Group Mail Works
Each active project has a Google Group with an address like:
Anyone on the project is added as a member. When an email is sent to (or CCs) the group address:
- A copy lands in the group archive — permanent, searchable, accessible at groups.google.com.
- A copy is delivered to each member's personal Gmail inbox, based on their subscription setting.
You can read project email the way you always have — in your own inbox — and you can also browse the full project archive in one clean view by going to the group.
The Basic Rules
These are the habits that make Group Mail actually work. Please read carefully.
1. CC the project group on every project email
Whether you're starting a new thread or replying to one, CC the relevant project group address. This is the single most important habit.
"Hi Alex, please find attached the revised structural drawings for review. Cc: [email protected]"
If you forget, the email won't reach the group, won't reach your colleagues, and won't be in the project archive.
2. Send replies "as" the group when appropriate (optional)
For external correspondence where you want the reply to land back in the group automatically, use the Send-as option in Gmail to send from the project group address rather than your personal address. This way, when the recipient hits reply, their reply goes straight to the group — not just to you personally.
Setup: Gmail Settings → Accounts → "Send mail as" → Add the project group address you're a member of.
Use your judgement. Personal correspondence stays from your personal address. Project correspondence (RFIs, transmittals, certifier comms, subbie coordination) is better sent-as the group.
3. Use the project tag in subjects when starting new threads
Where possible, lead the subject with the project tag:
[K7] Lift procurement — LiftCorp quote comparison
[GE1] Ground anchor licence — Figtree Blackwood scope
This helps everyone visually scan their inbox, and it supports the auto-CC routing rules we're rolling out at the Workspace level (more on this below).
4. Don't forward stray emails into the group as plain forwards
If an external party forgets to CC the project group and you want to bring the email into the project record, avoid the plain "Forward" button. A forward rewrites the sender as you and breaks search — colleagues searching for from:[email protected] won't find it.
Better options:
- Reply-all and add the group to CC. This brings the thread into the group from that point onward, with the original sender preserved in the thread history.
- For older orphan emails, ask Gear or the admin to inject them properly into the group archive — there's a process that preserves the original headers.
5. Choose the right subscription mode per project
Each member can set their notification preference per group independently. Go to the group at groups.google.com → My membership settings:
- Each email — recommended for your active projects (the 3–5 you're hands-on with this week).
- Digest — bundled 25 messages at a time; good for projects you're tracking but not driving.
- Abridged — daily summary; good for projects where you're a peripheral stakeholder.
- No email — archive-only; you can still browse the group when you need to, but nothing hits your inbox.
This is how we keep the admin sane when they're on 30 groups. Don't subscribe "Each email" to everything by default.
6. Take, assign, and resolve
Group Mail is set up as a Collaborative Inbox, which means each conversation in the group archive can be:
- Taken — you claim it, signaling to the team that you're handling the response.
- Assigned — pass it to whoever should handle it (with notification).
- Marked complete / no action needed / duplicate — closes the thread visually.
This works at groups.google.com (not in Gmail). It's optional but useful for projects with shared response responsibility — RFIs, certifier queries, council emails — to avoid two people drafting the same reply, or no one drafting it because everyone assumed someone else would.
7. Don't reply to internal-only conversations through the group
If you're sending a quick internal note to one colleague about a project ("hey can you grab the meeting minutes from yesterday"), don't CC the project group. The group is for project record correspondence — anything that should be part of the permanent project archive. Internal banter, quick logistics, and one-to-one questions don't need to clutter the archive.
Rule of thumb: would a future PI claim, audit, or handover want this email? CC the group. Otherwise, just send it normally.
What's Still in CloudHQ
CloudHQ shared labels remain in place for the projects that haven't been converted yet. We'll roll those over progressively over the next 4–8 weeks. Don't delete any CloudHQ-labeled emails in the meantime — they'll be migrated into their respective groups when the project converts.
For K10, GE1, and K7 — please stop using the old CloudHQ labels as of today. Use the group address only.
Questions, Problems, or "I Think This Email Got Lost"
Hit up Gear directly. The first few weeks of any system change will surface edge cases — flag them early so we can adjust the rules rather than working around them silently.
Welcome to Group Mail.
— PSEC Admin