The magnetic space groups can be placed into three categories. First, the 230 colorless groups contain only spatial symmetry, and correspond to the crystallographic space groups. Then there are 230 grey groups, which are invariant under antisymmetry. Finally are the 1191 black-white groups, which contain the more complex symmetries. There are two common conventions for giving names to the magnetic space groups. They are Opechowski-Guiccione and Belov-Neronova-Smirnova. For colorless and grey groups, the conventions use the same names, but they treat the black-white groups differently. A full list of the magnetic space groups (in both conventions) can be found both in the original papers, and in several places online.
The types can be distinguished by their different construction. Type I magnetic space groups,  are identical to the ordinary space groups,.
Type II magnetic space groups, , are made up of all the symmetry operations of the crystallographic space group, , plus the product of those operations with time reversal operation, . Equivalently, this can be seen as the direct product of an ordinary space group with the point group .
Type III magnetic space groups, , are constructed using a group , which is a subgroup of  with index 2.
Type IV magnetic space groups, , are constructed with the use of a pure translation, , which is Seitz notation for null rotation and a translation, . Here the  is a vector (usually given in fractional coordinates) pointing from a black colored point to a white colored point, or vice versa.