Answers.Body: <p>I can think of three reasons why this would happen.</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>"Board Members" is a smart group.  You can check this by going to <strong>Contacts menu » Manage Groups</strong>.  If it's a smart group, it either a) shouldn't be, or b) the criteria need to be changed.</li>
  <li>The Board Member group is the parent of some other group. I did this by accident myself recently; you'll need to remove the parent-child link.</li>
  <li>Some custom magic.  If you're the only administrator of the database, we can rule this out.  However, I perform similar tasks all the time, either using a) cron with a SQL query, b) the <a href="https://civicrm.org/extensions/sql-tasks-extension-configurable-recurring-tasks" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SQL Tasks</a> extension, c) a custom extension. </li>
  </ul>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-04-27T17:58:48.793Z
Answers.Text: It's not a smart group, and no other admins or extensions. I guess it could be coming from cron. It was, however, the parent of the Board Member email group. I have deleted the parent of the email group but I'm not sure if the problem persists or not. I'll have a look. Thanks for the ideas.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Archie
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-04-29T17:53:04.950Z
Answers.Text: This appears to be the answer. I deleted the parent group link from the Board Emails group and all is well. I hadn't realized I could use the Board Members group as both an access list and an email list, so at this point, a separate group is unnecessary anyway. Thanks!
Answers.UserDisplayName: Archie
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-04-29T21:08:56.427Z
Answers.Text: @Archie - I would advise against using a group as both an access and email list if you're using the "unsubscribe" token and not the "optout" token.  Otherwise someone unsubscribing is removed from the group, which affects their access.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jon G - Megaphone Tech
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-05-04T13:07:09.087Z
Answers.Text: Thanks for the heads-up, Jon. I'll double-check how I have that set. I might as well just put them in a separate email group, even though it doubles the work for changes in the Board membership.
  
  I still don't understand why having the members group as the parent to the email group resulted in adding all of the contacts to the members group. I'd have expected the email group to be a strict subset of the parent without affecting the contacts in the parent. Nonetheless, it works the way you suggested.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Archie
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-04-27T14:57:05.570Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-04-27T14:57:05.570Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jon G - Megaphone Tech
Body: <p>We have about 2800+ contacts in CiviCRM, including our 16 Board members. I have a "Board Members" group (access control group) for just those Board members. I also have a mail group set up for the same members. For some reason, unrelated to any action on my part as far as I can see, I am getting our entire list of contacts added to the Board Group.</p>
  
  <p>I can even go in and remove all of the contacts from the Board Group, add the contacts from the Board email group back in and verify the correct contacts are in the Board Group. If I go away for some short period of time and return to look at the Board Group, all 2800+ contacts have been put back in.</p>
  
  <p>Needless to say, this is annoying and we don't really need 2800 people on the Board. Does anyone have an idea what's going on and how to put a stop to it?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>
  
Tags: <civimail><civimember>
Title: Contacts unexpectedly added to group
ThreadText: # Contacts unexpectedly added to group
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-04-27)
  
  We have about 2800+ contacts in CiviCRM, including our 16 Board members. I have a "Board Members" group (access control group) for just those Board members. I also have a mail group set up for the same members. For some reason, unrelated to any action on my part as far as I can see, I am getting our entire list of contacts added to the Board Group.
  
  I can even go in and remove all of the contacts from the Board Group, add the contacts from the Board email group back in and verify the correct contacts are in the Board Group. If I go away for some short period of time and return to look at the Board Group, all 2800+ contacts have been put back in.
  
  Needless to say, this is annoying and we don't really need 2800 people on the Board. Does anyone have an idea what's going on and how to put a stop to it?
  
  Thanks
  
  **Tags:** civimail, civimember
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2020-04-27. Score: 3 | Accepted answer
  
  I can think of three reasons why this would happen.
  
  * "Board Members" is a smart group. You can check this by going to **Contacts menu » Manage Groups**. If it's a smart group, it either a) shouldn't be, or b) the criteria need to be changed.
  * The Board Member group is the parent of some other group. I did this by accident myself recently; you'll need to remove the parent-child link.
  * Some custom magic. If you're the only administrator of the database, we can rule this out. However, I perform similar tasks all the time, either using a) cron with a SQL query, b) the [SQL Tasks](https://civicrm.org/extensions/sql-tasks-extension-configurable-recurring-tasks) extension, c) a custom extension.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: It's not a smart group, and no other admins or extensions. I guess it could be coming from cron. It was, however, the parent of the Board Member email group. I have deleted the parent of the email group but I'm not sure if the problem persists or not. I'll have a look. Thanks for the ideas.  
  > **username_0**: This appears to be the answer. I deleted the parent group link from the Board Emails group and all is well. I hadn't realized I could use the Board Members group as both an access list and an email list, so at this point, a separate group is unnecessary anyway. Thanks!  
  > **username_1**: @username_0 - I would advise against using a group as both an access and email list if you're using the "unsubscribe" token and not the "optout" token.  Otherwise someone unsubscribing is removed from the group, which affects their access.  
  > **username_0**: Thanks for the heads-up, Jon. I'll double-check how I have that set. I might as well just put them in a separate email group, even though it doubles the work for changes in the Board membership.  I still don't understand why having the members group as the parent to the email group resulted in adding all of the contacts to the members group. I'd have expected the email group to be a strict subset of the parent without affecting the contacts in the parent. Nonetheless, it works the way you suggested.  
  
  ---
  
  