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Groups

A group is an area within a space — its own members, its own chat rooms and content, its own rules for getting in. Spaces use groups for teams, cohorts, inner circles, and paid tiers.

You can be in many groups across a space. Groups are listed in the Groups row on the space's member list, and admins manage them in Studio under Community → Groups. A group isn't a tile on the desktop, but it can have a folder there that only its members can open.

Access modes​

Each group has one of four access modes:

  • Open — visible to the space; any member can join.
  • Paid — visible to the space; members join by buying a product that unlocks it.
  • Invite only — visible to the space, so people know it exists, but admins choose who's in.
  • Private — hidden from non-members entirely. If you're not in it, you won't see it.

Moving a paid group to another mode doesn't stop anyone's billing. Before the change goes through, you're shown how many active subscriptions will keep billing while the group becomes free to join. Nothing is canceled and nothing is refunded, and the products that unlock the group stay on sale. To stop the billing, detach those products first. The change only happens once you confirm with Change access.

What group membership means​

A group's content belongs to its members. If a group isn't open, its interior — chat rooms, posts, files — is closed to other members of the space; with a private group, they won't even see it exists.

The exception is the space's admins: they run the space, so they can see and manage every group in it, including closed ones.

Inside a group​

Opening a group shows its own panel: its description and members, then its files (the folders it gates), its chat rooms, and its blog topics. Members can leave from there. If you're not in it yet, you see what's open to you and a way to join or get access.

Space admins edit a group in Studio under Community → Groups, on one page with General (name, description, avatar, color), Access (the mode and the products that unlock it), the group's topics, Members, and a Danger zone for deleting it. Group owners and admins get an Edit group button on the group's own panel.

Gating a folder with a group​

When you create a group, the Shared folder switch adds a folder to the desktop that only that group can open. A group can also gate any existing folder on the space's desktop: a space admin picks the group under Access in the folder's settings, and from then on only that group's members can open the folder — people who can't see the group don't see the folder at all. If the group is open to the space, so is the folder.

Removing the gate opens the folder and everything in it to everyone who can see it, so you're asked to confirm first.

Moving a topic in or out​

A topic — a post feed, a chat room, or both — doesn't have to stay where it was made. From Studio, a space admin can use Move to… to send one into a group, back out to the space at large, or straight from one group to another.

Who can see it afterwards follows its new home. Moved into a group that's closed to the rest of the space, the topic and everything in it goes with it — only the people who can reach that group can read it. Moved into an open group, nothing is restricted; the group is just organizing it. Moved back out, everyone in the space can see it again, unless the topic's own settings say otherwise. One thing doesn't come back on its own: a public topic stops being public the moment it moves into a group, and moving it out again doesn't restore that — see Who can see what.

Moving a topic is a space admin's to do, not a group admin's. Taking a topic out of a group widens who can read it, which is the space's call rather than the group's.

Group roles​

Groups have their own member / admin / owner roles, scoped to the group and separate from space roles. Group admins manage the group's members and settings; changing group roles is for the group's owner or the space's admins.

Getting people in​

Group admins add members one at a time, in batches, or by space role — "add everyone with the Core team role" in one step. Groups can carry a member limit. Joining a paid group yourself takes one of the products that unlock it; when an admin adds someone to a paid group directly, they get access rather than being charged. And if an admin turns an existing group into a paid one using a product you already hold, you're enrolled automatically — no second purchase.

Each product that unlocks a group has an Offer when joining switch under Unlocked by. Turn it off and the product isn't offered when people join the group, but it still unlocks the group for anyone who buys it elsewhere, from its own page or a folder tile. A paid group needs at least one product that is offered when joining.

Leaving a group is always yours to do. For what leaving means for a paid membership, see Paid membership & unlocks.

Deleting a group​

Deleting a group deletes what's inside it — its topics, posts, messages, events, and files — and ends every member's access to it. It can't be undone, and you're shown what goes before you confirm.

Two things to know first:

  • Gated folders go with it. Any folder this group gates is deleted too, along with everything in it. They're listed by name in the confirmation.
  • Paid access is checked first. If the products that unlock this group are the only way into another paid group, DFOS refuses the delete until you detach the product from that group or change how people get into it. Where deleting does cancel active subscriptions, access ends immediately, billing stops at the end of the period already paid for, nothing is refunded, and DFOS doesn't notify the subscribers.