This article explains the following scenarios a moderator may encounter:

• Members have requested to unsubscribe from the group via email, but are still listed on the "Members" page.
• Members have requested membership via email, but do not appear as subscribed or pending.
• Multiple unexplained or unresolved requests to unsubscribe or subscribe found in the "Email Commands" log.

Since anyone can send an email to a group's "unsubscribe" address, it's not uncommon to see multiple unsubscribe requests from email addresses that have never been subscribed to the group in the "Email Commands" section of the Group Activity logs. These entries are often caused by spammers sending to the group's "unsubscribe" address, and can be ignored. Note: Moderators can check to see if a particular email address has ever been subscribed to the group by searching the "Memberships" section of the Group Activity logs for that email address.

Moderators may also notice unsubscribe requests (logged as "Unsubscribe requested") from members attempting to leave the group, but notice that those members are still appearing on the "Members" page. This occurs when members request to unsubscribe from a group via email, but do not respond to the confirmation email sent to their email address in order to complete the unsubscribe process. (Note: If members report not receiving a confirmation email, they should be advised to check their spam folder.) Once members have responded to the confirmation email, their email address will be logged in the "Email Commands" section as "Unsubscribed confirmed" and they will no longer be a member of the group.

The process is similar for subscribe requests. When a potential member sends a message to the group's "subscribe" address (logged as "Membership requested"), they are sent a confirmation email which they must respond to before their membership request will be processed. If there is no corresponding entry for that email address indicating that a membership request has been confirmed (logged as "Membership confirmed"), then the request could be from a potential member who has not responded to the confirmation email. In that case, that potential member would not appear as a confirmed or pending member in the group. However, it is also possible that these entries are the result of spammers sending a message to the group's "subscribe" address.