Copying groups will create them on the destination site and will insert all the users who were members of the source group into the new group on the destination sites.
Note: For Microsoft 365 Groups migrations, see the article Copy structure and content - Microsoft 365 Groups.
Index
Prerequisites
You have site collection admin permissions on your source and destination site collections.
Note: Site collection admin permissions are required even if you have higher admin privileges like SharePoint admin or global admin permissions. For more information, see Microsoft administrative permissions.
How-to
Select Copy from the menu.
Select Copy structure and content.
Click Connect.
Select your source.
Click Next.
Click Connect.
Select your destination.
Click Next.
Select Groups from the list of Site objects.
Select the group(s) you want to copy from the source.
Drag and drop them into the destination, or click Start copy on the bottom-right corner.
Once the action is completed, the migration report will show any successes, warnings, or errors. See Migration Report for more details.
Default Behavior
If you select the option to merge, all the users that exist in the source group but not in the destination group will be added to the destination group. The owner of the group will also be updated.
Updating Group Membership
The users that already exist in the destination group will not be updated, and their group membership will be maintained. If you need to update the membership at the destination, you will need to copy the group and manually map the source users to the correct users at the destination.