GPF Basics: Join a Google Product Forum and Configure Your Membership

March 2019: The Google help forums are in the process of moving to a new platform, integrated with the Google help centers. These instructions no longer apply.

If you are having trouble with a Google product or service such as YouTube, Gmail, Hangouts or AdSense, you can get expert assistance in the Google Product Help Forums.

Your first step is to find the right Google product help forum.  It's easy enough to simply open the forum and post your question. But if you'd like more details, and learn a bit more about forum features, read on!

GPF Basics: getting around the Google Product Forums

1. Find the right google product help forum!

>> 2. Join the forum and configure your membership and email settings

• Join the forum: 
• Start a new topic or reply to a post to be prompted to join
• OR click the gear icon on the top right of the forum to check your settings
• Set your forum name
• Choose whether to show your profile photo
• Select your email notification default settings

3. Search the forum 
4. Reply to a topic
5. Post a new topic of you own 
6. Find your discussions

Enjoy answering questions? You might be interested in Google Top Contributor Program!

Join a Google Product Forum and configure your membership and email settings

Once you've found the right Google product help forum, you need to join the forum to post your own question.

Each Google Product Forum has its own membership. That means you can join the YouTube Help Forum without joining the Gmail Help forum - or join both and have different settings for each.

Join the forum:

Click the button to post a new topic or reply to a post, you'll be prompted to join the forum.

Review or change your forum membership settings

1. Click the gear icon on the top right of the forum
2. Select Membership and email settings from the menu

Select your Forum Name

Peggy K was already taken

Your name will appear next to your posts. It can be any name not yet in use.

Link to your Google Profile and use your Profile photo. 

If you want a profile image, you must link your Google Profile.  Note that Google may link to your profile.

Configure your email notification settings

To change the email settings for the forum click Email settings

There are four email delivery options for the forum as a whole:

• Don't send email updates [this is the setting I use]
• Send daily summaries (one email summary message per day)
• Send combined updates  (25 messages per email)
• Notify me for every new message (about # per day) 

Note that for busy help forums, a notification for every new post will result in a lot of emails!

You can also opt to be automatically subscribed to any discussion you post in 

Click the blue "Join this group" button and you're set!

Now that you've joined the forum, search for answers:

GPF Basics
1. Find the right google product help forum!
2. Join the forum and configure your membership and email settings
3. Search the forum for similar questions
4. Reply to a topic
5. Post a new topic of you own by clicking the "New Topic" button 
6. Find your discussions