Groups.io: Changelog

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October 16, 2026

Ask

• BUGFIX: In Ask, a long request that contained a capitalized AND, such as "find all files whose titles include X AND whose content includes Y", was treated as search-engine syntax and sent to the search engine as a literal query, so every word had to match and nothing was found. Only short queries are now treated as search syntax; longer requests are read as questions. https://beta.groups.io/g/ai/message/177
• CHANGE: When you ask Ask to look only in the Files section, it now considers up to 50 matching files instead of 10, so lists of files are less likely to be cut short. Punctuation typed inside quotes, like "pathology," is no longer treated as part of the quoted word. https://beta.groups.io/g/ai/message/177
• CHANGE: Ask now reads the rest of the discussion around each message it finds, not just the message that matched your words, since the answer to a question is usually in the replies. It also ranks what it found before writing, so the most relevant messages are read first.
• CHANGE: Ask answers now cite their sources with numbered links, and every link is checked against the sources Ask actually read before the answer is shown, so a link can no longer point at something that wasn't there. Each answer ends with a Sources list naming the cited messages, wiki pages, and files, with their senders and dates.
• BUGFIX: A very large message or file among Ask's search results could stop every result after it from being read. Each document is now limited to a reasonable length, and one that doesn't fit no longer blocks the rest.
• BUGFIX: Ask answers that took longer than a minute to generate caused the connection to drop and reconnect as soon as the answer arrived.
• BUGFIX: After an Ask question failed, the Post to group button on later answers in the same session could post the wrong answer or fail until the page was reloaded.
• CHANGE: Follow-up questions in Ask make one call to decide whether a new search is needed and what to search for, instead of two, so they start faster.
• CHANGE: Ask questions are limited to 4,000 characters.
• INTERNAL: Ask answers are now cleaned the same way as other member content before being shown. The Ask conversation is sent to the answering model as separate turns rather than one transcript, and stored conversations keep only the newest answer's search results, so long chats no longer grow without bound. Each stage of answering (search, ranking, answer) now logs how long it took.

Subscription

• CHANGE: The only way to leave a group from its home page was the Unsubscribe email address, and the Subscription section at the bottom of the page just said "You are subscribed to this group." It wasn't shown on phones at all. The Subscription section now has Edit Subscription and Unsubscribe links and is shown on all screen sizes. Unsubscribe takes you to your Subscription page and opens the confirmation window, which still offers to switch you to Daily Summary or Special Notices Only instead. The Leave Group buttons on the Subscription page and on the page you reach from the unsubscribe link in group emails are now called Unsubscribe, matching the rest of the site. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/41102
• BUGFIX: On the page shown after you ask to join a group, the group's name in the breadcrumb wasn't a link to the group's home page. It now is. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/41458
• CHANGE: When a group sends a pending member notice to people who ask to join, the page shown after asking to join now tells you that the group managers have emailed you about your request, that you may need to reply before you can be approved, and to check your spam or junk folder if you don't see it. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/41458

Account & Login

• CHANGE: Members whose login had expired landed on the groups.io home page when they went to groups.io, and had to click Log In to get to the login page. They are now taken straight to the login page, as they are when they follow a link to a group page. Members who logged out on purpose, and people who have never logged in, still see the home page, and groups.io/home always shows it. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/41423

Public Pages & Help

• CHANGE: On the groups.io home page, the only button was Get Started for FREE, which goes to the Pricing page, so members who came to log in clicked it and couldn't find their way in. On phones, the Log In link was also hidden in the menu. The home page now has a Log In button next to Get Started for FREE, and a note for existing members with a link to the how-to-log-in video. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/41399
• CHANGE: The two buttons on the groups.io home page weren't labelled, and the Log In button was a pale outline next to the solid green Get Started for FREE button. Each button now has a heading saying who it's for: "New to Groups.io?" above Get Started for FREE, and "Already a member of a group?" above Log In. Log In is now a solid blue button, with the how-to-log-in video link under it. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/41423
• NEW: A new Security page, also at groups.io/security, summarizes how Groups.io protects your groups and data: where data is hosted, encryption, account security, monitoring, backups, incident response, and how we use AI. It also lists the documents institutions can request for a security review, such as our HECVAT and VPAT. It's linked from the sidebar on the Terms, Privacy Policy, and other policy pages.
• CHANGE: The Subprocessors page, last revised in 2018, has been brought up to date. Each subprocessor now says what it does for Groups.io instead of "Cloud Service Provider". AI providers have their own section, which notes that their terms do not let them train on the data we send. Spur, used to check IP addresses to prevent fraud and abuse, and Tailscale are now listed, and Google is listed for both mobile push notifications and support email.

Site-wide

• BUGFIX: Quotes and other special characters in topic subjects, file and folder names and descriptions, chat member names, and pending message senders could break the menus and confirmation windows that use them. These are now handled correctly everywhere.

October 9, 2026

Highlights

• A large round of accessibility improvements across the site brings it toward the WCAG 2.1 AA standard, including a Skip to main content link, full keyboard support, clearer focus rings and higher-contrast colors.
• Enterprise groups can now have subgroups of their own, one level deep, and the /createsubgroup and /getsubgroups endpoints support them.
• New API endpoints manage member labels, and /getmembers and /searchmembers can filter members the same way the Members page does.
• Draft saving is more reliable: dropped connections and lost confirmations no longer leave the editor re-sending old saves or silently not saving.
• Sending a topic or reply now shows Sending... and disables the button, and sending a message no longer shows a false Sending is taking longer than expected notice.

Messages & Topics

• BUGFIX: After you scrolled down a Topics or Messages page far enough to load more, the page didn't clean up after itself when you went to another page, so parts of the old page could keep running in the background. In the mobile app, the handlers that hide the bottom bar when the keyboard opens also piled up as you moved between pages. Pages now clean up properly when you leave them.