What is a shared inbox?

How does a shared inbox work?

A shared inbox works by giving several people their own access to one address. Mail sent to support@ lands in one list that the whole team sees. Each person signs in as themselves, picks up a conversation and replies, and the reply goes out from support@, not from their personal address. Because the conversation stays in the shared list, anyone can see what was said and pick it up later.

The difference between a shared inbox that works and one that causes chaos is a handful of small features:

• Assignment: each conversation has one owner, so nobody wonders whether someone else replied.
• Status: open, waiting on the customer, or closed, so the list shows only what still needs work.
• Internal notes: comments on a conversation that only the team sees, such as "she's a wholesale customer, offer the trade price".
• Collision warnings: a sign that a teammate is already writing a reply.
• One history: every message to and from the customer in one thread, whoever sent it.

What's the difference between a shared inbox, a shared mailbox and a group?

They all put one address in front of several people, but they differ in who sees what and how replies are tracked. The main options a small business meets are these:

	Group or forwarding list	Microsoft 365 shared mailbox	Google Workspace Collaborative Inbox	Shared inbox tool
How mail arrives	A copy in each person's own inbox	One mailbox everyone opens	One group everyone opens	One list in the tool
Replies come from	Each person's own address, unless set up	The shared address	The group's address	The shared address
Who's handling it	Nobody can tell	Nobody can tell	Take, assign or drop	Assignment
Status	None	Read or unread	Complete, no action needed or duplicate	Open, waiting, closed
Internal notes	No	No	An optional note when assigning	Yes
Cost	Included	Included, up to 50 GB without a licence	Included with Google Workspace	Per user, on top of email

A forwarding list is the trap most teams fall into first. Everyone gets a copy, everyone assumes someone else will answer, and the customer either hears nothing or gets two different answers.

Why use a shared inbox instead of sharing a password?

Because a shared password gives everyone full control of the account and leaves no record of who did what. When three people sign in to one Gmail account, any of them can delete mail, change settings or read everything, nobody can tell who sent a given reply, and when someone leaves the password has to change for everyone.

Microsoft is blunt about it for its own shared mailboxes: the account behind one "isn't intended for direct sign-in", and you should "always block sign-in for the shared mailbox account and keep it blocked". People reach it through their own accounts instead. The same principle applies everywhere: one address, separate logins.

What should a good shared inbox have?

A good shared inbox makes it obvious what needs doing and who's doing it. When you compare options, check for:

1. Assignment to one person, with a view of "mine" and "unassigned".
2. Open, waiting and closed states, so finished conversations leave the list.
3. Internal notes and mentions that the customer never sees.
4. A warning when someone else is replying.
5. Saved replies for the questions you answer every week.
6. Rules that route mail, such as anything mentioning "invoice" to the person who handles billing.
7. Replies from the shared address that stay in the same thread.
8. Separate logins, and a record of who sent what.

These are the entry prices of four tools built around a shared inbox, from each company's own pricing page, checked on 7 November 2026:

Tool	Free plan	Lowest paid plan
Help Scout	Yes, up to 5 users and 1 inbox	Standard, $25 per user a month billed yearly
Missive	None listed	Starter, $14 per user a month billed yearly, up to 5 users ($18 monthly)
Front	None listed	Starter, $25 per seat a month billed yearly, up to 10 seats
Hiver	None listed	Growth, $25 per user a month billed yearly ($35 monthly); seat purchases start at 2, then 5, then increments of 5; AI usage is separate

The ticketing-system guide explains how owners and states track a request through to resolution.

How do you set up a shared inbox?

You set one up in your email provider or in a separate tool, depending on how much you need. In Microsoft 365, an admin goes to Teams & Groups, then Shared mailboxes, selects Add a shared mailbox, names it and adds the members who should see its mail. In Google Workspace, you create a Google Group for the address, turn on conversation history, then choose Collaborative Inbox under the group's additional features.

Either takes a few minutes and costs nothing extra. Move to a dedicated tool when you need notes, states and collision warnings, or when the same customers write to support@ and to people's own addresses and you want one history.

How does Mojobase handle a shared inbox?

In Mojobase, any mailbox can be shared: in Email Settings → Inboxes, whoever connected it sets Who sees it to Everyone in the company, and each person still signs in as themselves. Mojobase hosts shared addresses such as support@ and hello@ on your own domain, or connects the Gmail and Outlook mailboxes you already have.

For customer questions, switch an address to Support in Customers Settings → Support addresses. Its mail moves to the Inbox in Customers, where each conversation is open, waiting or closed and has one assignee, and the AI drafts each answer from your published Handbook pages for a person to send. Replies go out from the same address and stay in the thread. The AI answers on its own only for topics you've set to Auto, hands anything it's unsure of to a person, and every reply is in Activity. More on the Support page.