Search for groups

You can search for groups matching certain attributes with the groups.list method of the Directory API. This method accepts the query parameter which is a search query combining one or more search clauses. Each search clause is made up of three parts:

Field
Group attribute that is searched. For example, name.
Operator
Test that is performed on the data to provide a match. For example, the = operator tests if a text attribute matches a value.
Value
The content of the attribute that is tested. For example, groupName.

Multiple clauses are separated by whitespace and are implicitly joined by an AND operator.

Fields

Field Value Type Operators Description
email string =, :{PREFIX}* The group's email address. Note: This cannot be used with the memberKey parameter in the same query.
name string =, :{PREFIX}* The group's display name. Note: This cannot be used with memberKey parameter in the same query.
memberKey string =, The memberKey query parameter returns all groups for which a user or group has a membership. This value can be any of the user's primary or alias email address, a group's primary or alias email address, or a user's unique ID. Note: This cannot be used along with the email or name parameters in the same query.

Value Types

Value Type Notes
string Surround with single quotes ' if the query contains whitespace. Escape single quotes in queries with \', for example 'Valentine\'s Day'.

Operators

Operator Supported Value Types Notes
= string, boolean, number, date The field and the value match exactly. For example, name=contact matches all groups with the name attribute "contact", but not "contactgroup". Supported on most string fields (see above).
:{PREFIX}* string The field starts with the value. For example, a query with email:support* matches groups with email values of "supportgroup@", and "support@" but not "contactsupport". Only supported on a limited set of string fields (see above).

Examples

All queries use the groups.list method, which has an HTTP request similar to the following (line breaks included for readability):

GET https://admin.googleapis.com/admin/directory/v1/groups
?domain=primary domain
&query=query parameters

The query parameters must be URL encoded. For example, the query query=email:support* is URL encoded as query=email%3Asupport*. All examples on this page show unencoded query parameters. Client libraries handle this URL encoding automatically.

Search for a group by display name

name='contact'

Search for groups matching an email prefix

email:admin*

Search for all groups of a user

memberKey=user@company.com

Search for groups with name and email starting with contact

name:contact* email:contact*