Google Groups posting disabled for missionary.org

[myleschristensen]

My daughter recently left on her mission, and we were told to set up a group mailing system before she left. I can't remember where the information came from, but the two suggested options were "tags" in her Gmail account (because she logs into her missionary.org email account through the Gmail interface), or Google Groups. We were told (and tested ourselves) that the "tags" option wouldn't work from a mobile device, because the mobile Gmail app doesn't have tag functionality. So we set up the Google Groups. Unfortunately, when I tried to give my daughter's missionary.org email address the permission to send to the group, the page says "Web posting has been disabled for this member by their domain administrator." Is that a decision at the Church headquarters level? I don't see any way to override it on the individual user level.

So I'm wondering what other parents have done to solve this problem. The options I can see at this point are to forward her email to the group myself (not a bad plan, but kind of a pain for us, and it's delayed - by several days if I forget ). The other option is to see if she can get access to the desktop version of the Gmail interface (which is difficult on a mobile device). I'm sure we're not the first parents to run into this problem. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks,

Myles

[davesudweeks]

We did not use Google Groups. When our twins both served at the same time, we set each one up with an account on mymission.com. This is a free service and we are not connected with it in any way. Our missionaries would send their mission emails to us and we would upload them to the site (after my wife corrected the content, spelling, etc. LOL). My daughter's emails were pretty complete, but my son typically sent multiple emails and we had to piece them together to make a coherent conversation. The site allows you to map their location (I mapped the address of the city offices or a park nearby so their apartment would not be highlighted) and upload pictures if you want. We would direct family members and friends to their mymission.com page for updates on their mission. Friends could send them emails through the mymission.com interface and the service would forward the email to their missionary mail account (and blind copy us).

After they returned home, my wife deleted the accounts - it does have the option to download everything before deletion if you want (or even print it into a book). You can leave the account open after they return home as well - there are some on the site you can review. There was some quirkiness getting pics to orient correctly, but overall we liked it. This was in the days where they could only email on P-day so it was a once/week exercise to update it.

[sbradshaw]

I have a couple of friends on missions or that have recently returned. They just keep a list of everyone to send their weekly emails to, and send the email to everyone directly (there isn't anything in the middle that forwards the messages).

The easiest way to keep track of who to send emails to is probably for her to set up a group under her contacts (this is different from a "Google Group"):
https://support.google.com/contacts/answer/30970
Then, in the "To" field (or "BCC" if there are a lot of people) she can type the name of the group, and it will send to everyone in the group.

[myleschristensen]

Unfortunately, the contact group (which is technically a "label" not a "tag" as I had called it in the original post) is not available on the mobile app. If she had access to a computer, this wouldn't be a problem, but she and her companion are assigned phones to use for emailing.

[scgallafent]

Unfortunately, the contact group (which is technically a "label" not a "tag" as I had called it in the original post) is not available on the mobile app. If she had access to a computer, this wouldn't be a problem, but she and her companion are assigned phones to use for emailing.

If she can use the Contacts app on the mobile device (assuming Android), the labels can be set there.

[lajackson]

If she can use the Contacts app on the mobile device (assuming Android), the labels can be set there.

I have been trying for years to do this and finally gave up. Thank you for mentioning it. You are right. In Android Contacts, from the three-bar menu you can select the Label and it pulls up everyone in your Contacts list with that label. Then in the three-dot menu you have a Send email option, along with other options to manage the labels.

This is the very last reason I thought I still had to use my laptop. I feel ten years younger.

[kemp]

Is there any way to do this to send bcc: rather than to: ? My missionary only has access to the GMAIL APP on their android phone. He set up a label for a weekly email to friends and family, then goes into contacts and using the label, starts a new message, which populates the to: line. there is no way to copy and paste from To: to Bcc: Do missionaries have any other way they can do this if they don't have access to the web interface of gmail? Is another mail app authorized besides gmail?

[davesudweeks]

When our twins were on missions a few years ago, they would send their weekly emails to us and my wife would forward them to a bcc group they asked us to maintain. We also had a free account for each of them on mymission.com where we would post excerpts from their emails for others to view online - that website allowed people to send them emails through the service (and we would be bcc by the site so we could monitor as parents).