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What Is a Shared Inbox + 10 Best Tools to Pick From in 2025
If your team handles support, sales, or operations via email, a shared inbox can make life easier. We’ve listed the 10 best tools to help you manage everything in one place.
1. What is a Shared Inbox?
2. What are the Benefits of a Shared Inbox?
3. Teams That Benefit Most From a Shared Inbox
4. 10 Best Shared Inbox Tools to Consider (2025 Updated List)
5. Key features of a shared inbox platform
6. How to Set Up a Shared Inbox (Step-by-Step Guide)
7. Alternatives to Shared Inbox: What You Should Actually Use?
8. Real-World Stories of How Teams Use a Shared Inbox
9. Best Practices to Manage a Shared Inbox Efficiently
10.Conclusion: Streamline Team Collaboration with a Shared Inbox
When teams are small, managing emails together often feels simple enough. Everyone’s looped into a common inbox, and replies happen as they come in. There’s no system, but it still works, until it doesn’t.
As the business grows and more teammates get involved, that same shared email becomes a source of confusion. Who’s replying? What’s been followed up on? Did someone already respond? Without structure, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks.
You’ve probably seen it happen: a customer emails support@, and two people reply at the same time with different answers. Or worse – no one replies at all because everyone assumes someone else already did.
That’s why more and more teams turn to shared inboxes: a smarter way to manage team emails with visibility, accountability, and zero confusion.
1. What is a Shared Inbox?
A shared inbox is a single email inbox – like support@, info@, or finance@ — that multiple team members can access and work from. It’s built for collaboration. Everyone on the team can see incoming emails, assign them as tasks, leave internal notes, and track progress, all from the same place.
Unlike regular inboxes or distribution lists, a shared inbox lets teams:
- See exactly who’s handling what.
- Avoid duplicate replies.
- Respond faster with full context.
- Work as a team, without stepping on each other’s toes.
Example: Your support team receives an email at support@yourcompany.com. Using a shared inbox, the admin can assign the email to a team member, tag it as ‘urgent’, and also leave a note providing more context.
2. What are the Benefits of a Shared Inbox?
A shared inbox gives you control, coordination, and context. And if you’re managing handling high email volume, that difference is massive. Here are some key benefits:
1. You always know who’s handling what
With a shared inbox, every email can be assigned to a specific teammate—just like a task. You’re no longer stuck asking, “Has someone replied to this?” Assignments create accountability, reduce confusion, and ensure no email is forgotten.
Example: A customer writes in asking for a refund. Instead of guessing who should reply, you assign the thread to your teammate handling billing. They get notified instantly. The rest of the team knows it’s being taken care of.
2. Everyone has full visibility
Salesforce found that 70% of CX leaders see siloed communication as the biggest barrier to timely customer support. With a shared inbox, those silos disappear. Everyone on the team can see which emails land in the inbox, which ones have been replied to, and what still needs attention.
If someone’s out sick or swamped, their colleague can pick things up right away. And for managers, this means real-time visibility without having to micromanage.
3. You can collaborate inside the inbox (not outside it)
Need input from a teammate before replying? Just leave an internal note on the email thread. No forwarding. No copy-pasting into Slack. All the back-and-forth stays tied to the original message. It keeps your communication focused and saves your team from jumping between tools.
4. You can organize and prioritize better
Shared inboxes come with features like tags, filters, and views. These ensure that you’re not just reacting to emails in the order they arrive. You can filter by tags like “Urgent,” “Bug,” or “Refund,” and route them to the right people quickly.
For example, you could filter all “Bug” emails and route them to your engineering support team, while tagging all “Billing” issues for finance.
5. You get real metrics to improve team performance
Shared inbox tools (like Hiver) come with built-in reports that show how fast your team is responding, how long it takes to resolve an issue, and how much workload each teammate is carrying. This gives you data to identify bottlenecks, set response time goals, and balance work across the team – things a normal inbox just can’t offer.
6. You can automate the repetitive stuff
Smart shared inboxes let you automate simple actions. For example:
Automatically assign emails from a known vendor to the procurement team
Tag all emails with the word “invoice” as billing
Auto-close threads that haven’t received a reply in 72 hours
3. Teams That Benefit Most From a Shared Inbox
Here are the teams that get the most value from using a shared inbox tool:
1. Customer Support Team
This is the most common and high-impact use case. Customer support teams deal with high volumes of emails daily – refunds, bugs, general queries. A shared inbox helps them:
- Automatically assign emails to the available agent with round-robin or workload rules.
- Use tags like “Bug,” “Refund,” or “Urgent” to triage incoming emails and prioritize critical ones.
- Add internal notes to get input from tech or billing teams without forwarding or switching tools.
- Track resolution time and first-response time using built-in analytics.
Example: A customer writes in about a product issue. The query is auto-tagged as “Bug” and routed to a support engineer, who adds a note and escalates it to the dev team, without leaving the inbox.
2. Finance Team
Finance teams juggle vendor follow-ups, internal payment requests, and invoice confirmations. A shared inbox allows them to:
- Auto-tag and categorize emails based on vendor names or invoice keywords (e.g., “overdue,” “PO”).
- Route specific queries (like reimbursements vs. vendor payments) to the right teammate.
- Collaborate with approvers using internal comments directly on the email thread.
- Keep records organized with filtered views for monthly reconciliation.
In our exclusive report, How Finance Teams Are Losing Time, Trust, and Money, we surveyed 450+ mid-to-senior finance professionals across the US—and one stat stood out: 50% said they lack visibility into email queries and their status. That’s a big risk when you’re handling vendor payments, invoice approvals, or customer escalations. A shared inbox can help bring order to that chaos by giving the whole team clarity on who’s handling what.
3. Sales and Pre-Sales Teams
Sales teams can’t afford to miss a lead or delay a response. A shared inbox helps them:
- Auto-assign demo requests based on region, deal size, or product line.
- Add CRM context via internal notes, so reps don’t need to switch tabs to personalize replies.
- Tag and segment leads (e.g., “Enterprise,” “Cold,” “Demo Requested”) for follow-up campaigns.
Example: An enterprise lead emails for a demo. It’s auto-assigned to the regional AE and tagged “High-value.” The AE checks prior threads and sends a personalized reply, without needing CRM lookups.
4. Human Resources (HR) Teams
HR teams deal with confidential, timely conversations – job applications, internal queries, and onboarding. A shared inbox enables them to:
- Organize candidate emails by job role or location using tags (e.g., “Design – Remote”).
- Assign onboarding tasks to relevant team members for quick handoffs.
- Keep feedback and interview notes private using internal-only comments.
- Track resolution time for employee queries, like offer letters, policy clarifications, etc.
Hiver helps HR teams manage all communication in one place, across:
- Recruitment: Track job applications, onboarding steps, and hiring conversations.
- Talent management: Assign and monitor tasks across teams like Legal, Finance, and IT during onboarding and exits.
- Employee help desk: Route, tag, and respond to queries about payroll, reimbursements, and policies, from an inbox-like interface.
5. Internal IT or Admin Teams
IT service teams manage employee issues—from password resets to system outages. A shared inbox helps them with:
- Issue categorization (e.g., “Access Request,” “Hardware Issue,” “Outage”) using tags or keywords.
- Auto-assign tickets based on expertise or on-call availability.
- Add logs or escalation notes directly on the thread—no switching to a ticketing system.
Example: An employee emails about VPN issues. The email is tagged “Access Request,” assigned to the IT tech on shift, and resolved in minutes, with full tracking.
6. Operations or Logistics Teams
Ops and logistics teams deal with time-sensitive vendor and delivery coordination. A shared inbox helps them:
- Set up filters by vendor name or region to route incoming queries efficiently.
- Flag urgent delivery issues and assign them for same-day resolution.
- Collaborate with warehouse or dispatch teams using internal notes tagged to the original request.
- Track order status and response timelines for reporting and SLA adherence.
4. 10 Best Shared Inbox Tools to Consider (2025 Updated List)
Hiver
$19/month per user
AI and automations, reporting and analytics, email management, live chat, knowledge base, customer portal
7 days
Front
$19/month per user
Multi-channel support, collision detection, analytics
7 days
Drag
$12/month per user
Kanban-style email boards, task assignments, shared drafts
7 days
Gmelius
$24/month per user
Email sharing, collaboration, Gmail integration
7 days
Help Scout
$50/month per user
Knowledge base, live chat, AI workflows
15 days
Zendesk
$55/month per user
Ticketing system, SLA management, omnichannel support
14 days
Missive
$14/month per user
Chat, tasks, collaborative writing
NA
Kayako
NA
Help center, ticket management, live chat
14 days
Freshdesk
$15/month per user
AI-powered ticketing, automation, SLA policies
21 days
HappyFox
$29/month per user
Self-service portal, automation rules, asset management
14 days
1. Hiver
Hiver is an AI-powered customer service platform that looks and feels like your inbox. One of its standout features is the ability to manage group emails like info@ support@ etc. from your inbox’s left side panel.
You can manage multiple shared inboxes, and under each inbox you get a complete overview of what’s pending, what’s in progress, and what’s already been resolved. You’ll also see support channels like email, live chat, phone, SMS, WhatsApp, and social – seamlessly integrated in one platform. It’s as intuitive as checking your inbox, just 10x more powerful.
With Hiver, most teams can go live in under an hour. Pricing starts at $19/user/month and goes up to $49/user/month, with an Enterprise plan available on request. And for smaller teams or those just getting started, there’s a forever free plan that supports email, chat, WhatsApp, phone, and basic collaboration features.
Key Features:
- Automated Assignment and Tagging: Set rules to auto-assign queries based on keywords, sender, or topic. Use round-robin or skill-based logic to evenly distribute workload across the team.
- Harvey – Hiver’s AI Bot: Automatically close routine conversations like “Thank you” emails that don’t need a reply.
- Team Collaboration: Add internal notes, @mention teammates, or share response drafts. No need to forward emails or start Slack threads to get help on a ticket.
- Analytics & Custom Reports: Track key metrics like resolution time, CSAT, and workload. Build custom reports to see exactly where you’re doing well, and where you can improve.
- AI Copilot: Pulls answers directly from your knowledge base and suggests responses as drafts. It also fetches relevant info like order history or CRM details, from platforms including NetSuite, HubSpot, or Salesforce.
- AI Compose & Summarize: Instantly fix grammar, rewrite for tone, or shorten replies. Summarize long email threads into quick notes for easier handoffs.
- Live Chat & Chatbots: Use Hiver’s chat widget to talk to website visitors in real time. Chatbots handle FAQs so your agents can focus on more complex conversations.
- Customer Portal: Let customers raise issues and track their status without having to follow up manually. It’s a clean, self-serve experience that customers love.
- Self-Service Knowledge Base: Build and manage a branded help center that’s searchable and organized into categories. Reduce tickets by helping customers find answers on their own.
- Seamless Integrations: Connect Slack, Jira, WhatsApp, Asana, Zapier, and 100+ other tools to centralize context and improve workflows.
- Collision Detection: To prevent multiple responses to the same email, Hiver provides real-time alerts if two people are viewing or responding to the same email.
“What we instantly liked about Hiver was the ability to assign emails in our shared inbox. What tilted the scales further in Hiver’s favor were features like email templates, shared drafts, and conversation history.” –
2. Front
Front is a shared inbox platform that brings all your customer communication—email, SMS, live chat, and social media—into one unified workspace. But under the hood, it’s built for serious collaboration, automation, and visibility.
It’s especially useful for support, customer success, and account management teams that handle multiple channels and need to stay aligned on every customer conversation. Pricing starts at $19/user/month and goes up to $99/user/month.
Key Features:
- Automated Routing and Tagging: Set up custom rules to auto-assign messages, tag emails based on keywords or sender, and move priority conversations to the right agent/team immediately.
- SLAs (Service Level Agreements): Define SLAs by inbox or team, and automatically escalate or alert when response times are missed. Helps you stay on top of customer expectations.
- Collaboration: Tag teammates in comments, share drafts, or co-write replies in real time—without forwarding emails or starting a Slack thread.
- Deep Integrations: Connect Front with tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, and Asana to pull in customer data, push updates, or automate follow-ups—all from the inbox.
Note: As per a recent update, Front’s integration with Gmail no longer supports full-label sync. That means if you apply or remove a label inside Gmail, the change won’t reflect in Front—and vice versa. For teams used to managing workflows or organizing conversations with Gmail labels, this disconnect can lead to confusion and duplicated effort.
If your team relies heavily on Gmail’s native labeling and folder structure, you may want to consider alternatives like Hiver, which works directly inside Gmail and preserves your existing workflows—without needing to switch platforms or compromise on sync.
3. Drag
DragApp is a Gmail-based shared inbox tool for teams that want to manage group email addresses like support@ or info@ without leaving their inbox. It brings task management and shared inbox features into Gmail, so your team can organize, assign, and respond to emails.
It’s useful for small teams handling support, sales, hiring, or internal requests that need clear ownership and lightweight workflows. Pricing starts at $12/user/month and goes up to $24/user/month, depending on features like automation and integrations.
Key Features:
- Kanban Boards: Organize your inbox using columns like “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” This helps teams track progress and move conversations forward without needing an external task board.
- Email Assignment and Quick Templates: Assign emails to teammates, respond using ready-made templates, and schedule personalized follow-ups. It’s a simple way to reduce repetitive replies and maintain consistency.
- Convert Emails into Tasks: Turn any email into a task. Add notes, deadlines, or checklists, right in Gmail. Handy for keeping work actionable and transparent.
- Automation: Create rules to auto-assign emails, move them to the right board, or send templated replies based on subject or sender. Great for handling common questions without lifting a finger.
While you can leave notes, Drag lacks features like shared drafts or multi-agent editing, important for teams that frequently collaborate on email responses.
4. Gmelius
Gmelius is a shared inbox tool that lives inside Gmail and helps teams manage conversations, automate workflows, and collaborate without switching platforms. It’s best known for bringing process automation into your inbox, letting you auto-tag, auto-assign, and respond to emails based on predefined rules.
It works well for teams looking to manage shared inboxes like support@, info@, or sales@ while combining email management with lightweight project tracking. Pricing starts at around $24/user/month.
Key Features:
- Shared Labels: Share Gmail labels with your team, so everyone can view and filter conversations by type or priority. For example, you can create a “High Priority” label and share it only with your managers.
- Kanban Boards: Turn emails into cards and organize them into columns like “To Review,” “Waiting on Client,” and “Resolved.” It’s a handy way to track progress and stay organized inside your inbox.
- Email Tracking and Scheduling: Know when an email is opened or clicked, and schedule follow-ups to land at the right time—especially useful for outbound teams handling client communications or follow-ups.
- AI Auto Tagging: Use AI to analyze and tag incoming emails based on their content. This helps you sort, report on, and take action based on the nature of your emails—without manual triaging.
While you can share notes and boards, features like live reply collision alerts or shared draft editing aren’t available—this can be limiting when multiple teammates work on the same email thread.
5. Help-Scout
Help Scout is a shared inbox platform primarily for customer support teams. It brings conversations from email, chat, and phone into one organized inbox and focuses heavily on ease of use, collaboration, and customer context. Its clean interface and lightweight setup make it useful, especially for support teams that want structure without the complexity of a full help desk. Pricing starts at $50/user/month. A free plan is also available for small teams or early-stage use.
Key Features:
- Clear Queue Management with Unassigned View: See which conversations haven’t been picked up yet, so teams can jump in and assign them quickly. It’s a small feature that solves a big problem: making sure no customer is left waiting.
- Customer Profiles: Each conversation is tied to a full profile that includes past messages, open issues, and any internal notes. This gives agents the full story without digging through multiple tools or inboxes.
- AI Summarize: Automatically distill long email threads into quick summaries. This helps agents understand the issue at a glance—especially helpful when taking over from another teammate.
- Collaboration: Agents can @mention teammates in internal notes, share drafts for review, and assign specific threads to the right person. It reduces back-and-forth in Slack or email and keeps all context within the conversation.
Help Scout works in its own standalone interface. If your team is used to working directly inside Gmail, there’s a learning curve and added friction. And at $50/user/month, Help Scout can feel expensive if you have a large team. Many advanced features are only available in paid plans, and the free plan has limited capabilities. Here are 10 Help Scout alternatives for businesses.
6. Zendesk
Zendesk is a full-scale customer service platform known for handling support tickets across email, chat, phone, and social media. Its shared inbox capability is built into Zendesk Support, which is part of its broader help desk and ticketing suite. Rather than functioning as a traditional email-based shared inbox, Zendesk converts each message into a structured ticket—helping teams track, prioritize, and resolve customer issues with full accountability.
Pricing starts at $55/user/month, and goes up to $115/user/month.
Key Features:
- Skills-Based Routing: Automatically route tickets to the right agent based on their expertise, language, or department. This helps with faster resolution and a better experience for customers.
- Macros: Teams can use prebuilt response templates—called macros—to reply to repetitive questions with a click. These can be customized and shared across teams for consistent, efficient communication.
- AI and Automation: Use Zendesk’s AI to auto-prioritize tickets, suggest relevant help articles, and handle FAQs without manual involvement. Automation rules help categorize and triage tickets as they come in.
- Advanced Reporting: Get detailed analytics on SLA performance, ticket resolution time, backlog, agent productivity, and CSAT trends. You can also create custom reports to track what matters most to your team.
Zendesk doesn’t offer a Gmail-style shared mailbox. You can forward emails from shared addresses like support@company.com, but Zendesk turns them into tickets—so your team works in a queue, not in a conversational inbox view.
Also, setting up workflows, triggers, and automation can require more time and dedicated ops support. It’s not the plug-and-play experience smaller teams might expect.
7. Missive
Missive is a collaborative email app that is known for bringing shared inboxes, chat, and tasks into one place. With Missive, you always know who is working on what conversation. You can also pick a conversation on any channel (email or chat, for instance) and loop in a team member for getting inputs or context. Pricing starts at $14/user/month and goes up to $36/user/month.
Key Features:
- Collaborative Email Threads: Teams can share inboxes like support@, assign conversations, and leave internal comments directly within the email thread. External and internal replies are clearly separated, reducing confusion.
- Real-Time Chat Functionality: Get powerful built-in chat features—from one-on-one conversations to team or company-wide chat rooms. You can keep quick discussions or clarifications right next to your email workflow.
- Flexible Workload Distribution: Automatically assign emails based on your preferred method—Round Robin, Least Busy First, or First Available. This helps balance workload among the team.
- Collaborative Drafting: Multiple teammates can work on the same email reply together in real time. Edits are visible live, so you don’t need to juggle shared docs or copy-paste notes back into the inbox.
While Missive provides basic activity logs, it doesn’t offer detailed SLA dashboards or performance reports like Hiver, Zendesk, or Help Scout. If you’re tracking KPIs like response times or CSAT, you’ll need external tools or exports.
8. Kayako
Kayako is a customer service platform for teams that want to manage shared inboxes alongside other support channels like live chat and social media. Its standout SingleView™ feature shows a timeline of each customer’s activity—pages visited, emails, tickets, and data from tools like Trello, HubSpot, and Slack. It gives agents full context so they can respond faster and more accurately.
Kayako offers two plans: Essential and Enterprise. Pricing is not listed publicly—you’ll need to reach out for a custom quote.
Key Features:
- Collaboration: Kayako makes it easy to pull in outside experts—like vendors or suppliers—when needed. This is useful for teams that deal with escalations or queries involving multiple stakeholders.
- Customizable Support Portal: Build a branded help center for your customers where they can submit tickets, search articles, or chat with your team. You can customize the design and content to match your brand.
- Integrations: Connect tools like Salesforce, Slack, Mailchimp, Trello, or HubSpot. The goal: bring all customer touchpoints into one interface to eliminate the guesswork.
- Reporting: Track service-level response times across channels like email, live chat, and social. You can also monitor customer effort scores and build custom dashboards to drill into the metrics that matter most.
Some users report that the interface feels slightly dated or requires more clicks than necessary for routine actions like filtering or assigning tickets. A user on G2 also mentioned, “It’s not so easy to integrate Kayako with another tools or even customize it according to your needs. In fact, is not simple at all and Kayako doesn’t offer a lot of strong support in this area.”
9. Freshdesk
Freshdesk by Freshworks is a cloud-based customer support platform built to help teams manage customer conversations across multiple channels—email, chat, phone, and social media. Its shared inbox, also called a team inbox, lets multiple agents work together to respond to customer emails efficiently, without duplicating efforts. Paid plans start at $15/user/month (billed annually) and go up to $95/user/month for the Enterprise tier.
Key Features:
- Freddy AI: Automate repetitive tasks, provide chatbot support, and assist agents with AI-powered suggestions to resolve queries more efficiently.
- Team Collaboration: Assign tickets, share ownership, and use internal notes within tickets to ensure seamless collaboration among team members.
- Parent-Child Ticketing: Break down complex issues into a main ticket (parent) and sub-tickets (children) for detailed tracking and management. Perfect for teams working together on a large issue with multiple dependencies.
- Self-Service: Set up a branded knowledge base, forums, and chatbot flows to reduce ticket volume and help customers find answers faster without waiting for agent replies.
While Freshdesk is rich in features, some small teams may find the interface a bit crowded—especially if they don’t need all the bells and whistles right away. As per a user review on G2, “One thing we’ve struggled with in Freshdesk is the lack of customization it can be hard to adjust workflows to fit exactly what we need if you are not familiar with how to set it up.”
10. HappyFox
HappyFox is a cloud-based help desk platform that offers shared inbox capabilities as part of a broader ticketing system. It’s useful for support teams who want to manage conversations from multiple channels—email, chat, social media, and phone—in one place. Pricing starts at $29/user/month and goes up to $119/user/month, depending on the plan and features.
Key Features:
- Smart Rules & Automation: Set up rule-based workflows to auto-assign tickets, tag conversations, escalate overdue messages, or trigger alerts. This saves time and reduces the need for manual triaging.
- Self-Service Knowledge Base: Create a branded help center with FAQs, articles, and how-to guides. You can reduce ticket load by encouraging customers to find answers on their own.
- Task Management: Break down ticket resolution into smaller tasks, set due dates, and assign them to agents. Use task templates to speed up recurring work and get notified when tasks are due or assigned.
- Integrations: HappyFox connects with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Shopify, and other popular tools, so your agents can collaborate and pull in data without leaving the support dashboard.
HappyFox handles shared inboxes through its ticketing system, not like Gmail-style collaborative views. If you’re looking for a native email-first inbox experience (like Hiver or Missive), this may feel rigid.
5. Key features of a shared inbox platform
Shared inbox tools can vary widely in how they work and what they offer. If you’re evaluating tools, it’s important to look beyond the interface. Here’s a detailed checklist of features to consider when choosing a shared inbox platform.
Email Assignment
Creates accountability & eliminates confusion
Internal Notes
Keeps collaboration in one place
Tags & Views
Structures inbox for faster triage
SLA + Collision Alerts
Ensures timely, coordinated replies
Automation
Saves time on repetitive tasks
Reporting
Improves team performance with data
Mobile Access
Stays responsive on the go
Permissions & Logs
Integrations
Integrations
Helps build a unified workflow across tools
1. Email Assignment and Ownership
One of the biggest risks with shared inboxes is lack of ownership, when it’s unclear who’s supposed to respond, emails get ignored or answered twice. You should look for:
- Manual and rule-based assignment (e.g., route “refund” emails to billing)
- Visual indicators of who’s handling what
- Reassignment workflows if someone is out of office
2. Internal Notes and Team Collaboration
When a teammate needs help before replying, they shouldn’t have to forward the email or start a Slack thread. Always look for:
- Ability to @mention teammates inside the thread
- Private comments that don’t go to the customer
- Email activity logs (who replied, who tagged, who reassigned)
3. AI-Powered Inbox Management
AI features in shared inbox platforms are built to reduce repetitive tasks and help teams focus on what matters. It assists with writing, sorting, and resolving emails faster, without manual effort.
- Auto-drafts: Get ready-to-send email suggestions that agents can review, tweak, and send – saving time on every reply.
- AI Compose: Write replies in your brand’s tone of voice, no matter who’s responding.
- Deflection: Let AI handle common queries with instant answers, before they even hit your team’s inbox.
- Triage: Automatically categorize emails based on topic, sentiment, or urgency.
- Routing: Instantly assign conversations to the right teammate based on query type, workload, or past ownership.
4. Tags, Custom Views, and Smart Filtering
Tagging and filtering isn’t just for organization. It’s how you turn a chaotic inbox into a structured workflow. Consider the following:
- Custom tags (e.g., “Urgent,” “Bug,” “VIP customer”)
- Views like: “All unassigned high-priority emails” or “My Open Tickets”
- Saved searches for repeat workflows
5. SLA Monitoring, Collision Detection, and Smart Alerts
For support teams, speed is everything. SLA features help you deliver timely responses, prevents duplicate or conflicting replies, and also helps improve CSAT.
- Set SLAs by inbox, customer type, or tag (e.g., “Respond to VIPs within 1 hour”)
- Visual timers showing time left before SLA breach
- Collision detection (warning when someone else is already replying)
- Follow-up reminders for unresolved threads
6. Automation for Repetitive Email Workflows
Every manual step you automate saves hours over time, and keeps the team focused on meaningful work. Look for:
- Auto-assignment rules (e.g., all emails from vendor@example.com → Procurement team)
- Auto-tagging based on subject/body content
- Auto-close tickets after inactivity (e.g., 3 days)
- Welcome message triggers for common queries
7. Analytics, Reporting, and SLA Dashboards
A shared inbox should do more than organize emails; it should show you how your team is performing across every channel. You should be able to analyze metrics and SLA breaches. Look for tools that help you:
- Track metrics like first response time, resolution time, and backlog to identify where delays are happening.
- Review agent-level reports to balance workloads, spot burnout, and recognize top performers.
- Use tag-based insights to understand which issues come up most often—and prioritize fixes or documentation accordingly.
8. Mobile Access and Real-Time Sync
Your team isn’t always at their desk. For remote-first or globally distributed teams, mobile access isn’t optional. Look for:
- Native iOS and Android apps (not just browser access)
- Real-time push notifications for mentions or assignments
- Sync across devices—no lag or delays
9. Roles, Permissions, and Audit Logs
Not everyone should see or do everything in the inbox. Security and access control matter, especially for regulated industries. Always consider:
- Role-based permissions (e.g., viewer, contributor, admin)
- Inbox-specific access (e.g., finance team can’t see HR emails)
- Audit logs showing who did what, when
10. Tool Integrations and API Access
A shared inbox should connect with your existing tools and workflows. Look for:
- CRM integrations (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce)
- Slack, WhatsApp integration, or SMS channels linked directly to the inbox
- Webhooks or API access for custom workflows
Recommended reading
6. How to Set Up a Shared Inbox (Step-by-Step Guide)
Before setting anything up, evaluate a platform that aligns with how your team already works. For instance, Hiver works inside Gmail, and for all other email providers, the platform supports them while mirroring their native inbox interface – making it easy to get started without any friction.
Step 1: Choose the Shared Inbox Platform That Fits Your Team
A shared inbox setup includes team access, assignments, rules, tags, and visibility. Start with the basics, get your workflows right, and continue improving how your team collaborates inside the inbox. Here’s how to set it up the right way:
Key things to consider:
- Will the inbox be managed by support, sales, finance, or multiple teams?
- Do you need automation rules, reporting, or SLA tracking?
- Does your team need mobile access or integrations with tools like Slack or HubSpot?
Step 2: Connect the Group Email Address (e.g., support@, billing@)
Once you’ve selected your platform:
- Add the shared/group email address you want to use
- Verify ownership (usually via DNS or a quick email-based confirmation)
- Ensure email forwarding is correctly set up so all incoming messages land inside the shared inbox dashboard
- Set up forwarding from your domain provider or workspace admin console if needed.
Step 3: Add Your Team and Set Roles
Invite teammates who will manage this inbox. Assign roles based on what they’ll be doing:
- Agents handle replies, assignments, tagging
- Leads or managers oversee workload, handle escalations, and monitor reports
- Admins configure rules, SLAs, and integrations
Pro Tip: Limit inbox access for sensitive addresses (like hr@ or finance@) so only the right people can view or reply.
Step 4: Set Up Assignment Rules and Workflows
The real power of a shared inbox comes from automating how emails are routed and managed. Here’s what to configure:
- Auto-assignment: Route emails based on sender, subject, or keywords (e.g., all “invoice” emails go to finance)
- Load-based distribution: Assign emails evenly to available agents
- Manual assignment: Let agents pick or assign emails when needed
Pro tip: Create a fallback rule for unassigned emails so nothing gets stuck.
Step 5: Create Tags and Custom Views
Organize incoming emails with clear tags such as:
- “Urgent”
- “Bug”
- “Refund Request”
- “VIP Customer”
- “Follow-up Needed”
Then, build custom views such as “Unresolved Urgent Emails,” “My Open Tickets,” or “Escalated Finance Queries.” These views help teammates stay focused and give managers real-time visibility into team priorities and bottlenecks.
Step 6: Enable Internal Collaboration Features
Activate internal notes, @mentions, and conversation history so teammates can collaborate without leaving the inbox. Train your team to:
- Use notes instead of Slack for back-and-forth
- Mention teammates when input is needed
- Keep all updates within the thread
Step 7: Set SLA Timers, Collision Detection, and Alerts
Configure SLAs based on urgency or inbox type (e.g., respond to refund emails within 2 hours). Enable visual countdowns or alerts for emails nearing breach. Also, turn on collision detection to see when someone else is replying or viewing a thread.
Step 8: Activate Reporting and Analytics
Track key metrics like:
- Average response time
- First reply time
- Resolution time
- Open conversations per agent
- SLA breach counts
Set up weekly or monthly reports to spot trends, improve workflows, and redistribute load if needed.
Step 9: Connect Your Tools
Integrate your shared inbox with the tools your team already uses:
- CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce)
- Chat (Slack, WhatsApp)
- Project management (Asana, Trello)
- Knowledge base or documentation
This helps your team reply faster and stay inside one workflow, without switching tabs.
Step 10: Test and Train the Team
Once everything is configured:
- Test incoming and outgoing messages
- Simulate SLA breaches to check alerts
- Have your team go through a short onboarding session
- Create a quick-reference playbook for tagging, assigning, and handoffs
How to set up a shared inbox in Gmail
There are three main ways to manage a shared inbox using Gmail: Google Groups, Collaborative Inboxes, and Delegated Access. Each option has its own use case, whether you need basic email access, task-style management, or shared visibility for a team. Here’s a quick overview of how each one works and where it fits best.
- Google Groups as a Shared Inbox: Many teams use Google Groups to manage shared email addresses like support@ or info@. You can set up a group, add your team members, and allow people outside your organization to send emails to that address.
Once it’s configured, everyone in the group can view and reply to messages individually from their own Gmail. It’s a basic but functional option for small teams, though it lacks visibility into who’s replying or if something’s already been handled.
- Google Collaborative Inbox: To get more structure, Google offers a Collaborative Inbox – an advanced setting within Google Groups. This turns your group into a ticket-style system where you can assign conversations, mark topics as resolved, and filter by status. It’s a better fit for teams that need more accountability.
However, it still lives inside the Google Groups interface, which isn’t as user-friendly or real-time as your regular inbox. For many, it feels like switching between two apps.
- Gmail Delegated Access: It allows one user to give another permission to access and send emails on their behalf. It’s useful for executives sharing access with assistants or when only one or two team members need access to the same inbox.
But delegated access isn’t ideal for true team collaboration: there’s no way to assign emails, leave notes, or see who’s working on what. It’s more suited for individual support, not for teams.
How to set up a shared inbox in Outlook
Microsoft Outlook offers built-in support for shared mailboxes, making it easier for teams to manage group email addresses like help@yourcompany.com without needing extra tools. Here’s a quick overview:
Steps to set up:
- Admin creates the shared mailbox in Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
- Add members who should have access to the mailbox.
- Assign permissions:
- Full Access – read/manage the inbox
- Send As – send emails as the shared address
- Send on Behalf – send as “Name on behalf of Team”
What happens next:
- Once set up, the shared inbox appears in Outlook (desktop/web) for all members.
- Everyone can read, reply, and organize emails from the same inbox.
- There’s no need to share credentials: access is permission-based and secure.
While Outlook’s shared mailbox setup is simpler than Gmail’s, it still misses advanced features like assignments, automation, and internal notes – unless you use a dedicated shared inbox platform.
If your support team already uses Outlook for managing work emails, switching to Hiver is effortless. They can handle customer queries and work-related emails from one place, without toggling between a help desk and their inbox.
Hiver also centralizes all customer conversations and context in one view. With over 100 integrations, teams can access relevant customer details in a single, unified platform.
To help you understand better, we’ve created a free downloadable guide comparing shared inbox setup for Gmail vs Outlook. 👉Click here.
7. Alternatives to Shared Inbox: What You Should Actually Use?
Here’s how shared inboxes stack up against common options like Google Groups, distribution lists, etc., so you know what you’re really getting (and missing) with each.
1. Shared Inbox vs Google Groups
Google Groups is often used to send emails to multiple people at once (e.g., when someone emails support@, it goes to Alice, Bob, and Claire). But it’s not built for collaboration or accountability.
Assign ownership
✅ Yes
❌ No
Track reply status
✅ Yes (open, pending, closed)
❌ No
Prevent duplicate replies
✅ Yes (collision alerts)
❌ No
Internal notes
✅ Yes
❌ No
SLA tracking & reports
✅ Yes
❌ No
Works inside Gmail
✅ Seamless (with tools like Hiver)
✅ But limited functionality
2. Shared Inbox vs Google Groups
Google Groups is often used to send emails to multiple people at once (e.g., when someone emails support@, it goes to Alice, Bob, and Claire). But it’s not built for collaboration or accountability.
Assign ownership
✅ Yes
❌ No
Track reply status
✅ Yes (open, pending, closed)
❌ No
Prevent duplicate replies
✅ Yes (collision alerts)
❌ No
Internal notes
✅ Yes
❌ No
SLA tracking & reports
✅ Yes
❌ No
Works inside Gmail
✅ Seamless (with tools like Hiver)
✅ But limited functionality
Verdict: Google Groups is fine for simple broadcasts, but once you need clear ownership, tracking, or collaboration, it breaks down. Shared inboxes give you structure and visibility.
3. Shared Inbox vs Google Collaborative Inbox
Google’s Collaborative Inbox adds basic task assignment and statuses. But it’s clunky, limited, and hard to use for support or high-volume workflows.
Assign emails to teammates
✅ Yes
⚠️ Limited, manual
Add private notes
✅ Yes
❌ No
SLA tracking
✅ Yes
❌ No
Analytics
✅ Yes
❌ No
Built into Gmail UI
✅ Yes (with Hiver)
❌ Separate, unfamiliar UI
Automation rules
✅ Yes
❌ No
Verdict: Google Collaborative Inbox tries to bridge the gap but lacks critical features like SLAs, notes, and automation. Teams outgrow it fast.
4. Shared Inbox vs Delegated Access
Delegated access means giving another user permission to “peek” into your inbox and reply on your behalf. But it’s still one person’s inbox—not a team inbox.
Meant for teams
✅ Yes
❌ No
Shared Assignment
✅ Yes
❌ No
Tracking and reporting
✅ Yes
❌ No
Internal comments
✅ Yes
❌ No
Roles and access controls
✅ Yes
❌ No
Verdict: Delegated access is useful for executive assistants or inbox backups—not for team-based workflows. It lacks structure and visibility.
5. Shared Inbox vs Distribution Lists
Distribution lists (like help@ → alice@, bob@, claire@) only forward emails to multiple people. No one knows who replied. No way to track anything.
Reply tracking
✅ Yes
❌ No
Email ownership
✅ Yes
❌ No
Collision alerts
✅ Yes
❌ No
Filtering or SLA tracking
✅ Yes
❌ No
Works natively in Gmail
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
Verdict: Distribution lists are good for visibility—but terrible for accountability. Once your team needs to actually manage emails, a shared inbox is a better choice.
6. Shared Inbox vs Email Alias
An email alias is just another name for your inbox. For example, sales@ might forward to priya@. It doesn’t come with collaboration or tracking.
- Emails sent to the alias land in someone’s inbox—but there’s no way to assign, tag, or discuss them.
- You’ll need to forward, CC, or ping someone to collaborate—which creates confusion and duplication.
8. Real-World Stories of How Teams Use a Shared Inbox
Here’s how shared inboxes stack up against common options like Google Groups, distribution lists, etc., so you know what you’re really getting (and missing) with each.
Wellness: Align Brooklyn Enhances Customer Experience
Align Brooklyn, a boutique wellness studio, faced challenges in managing customer inquiries through individual Gmail accounts, leading to missed messages and delayed responses. By using Hiver’s shared inbox solution, they centralized all customer communications into a single, collaborative platform. This change enabled the team to assign emails, use internal notes for seamless shift transitions, and prioritize urgent queries effectively. As a result, they saved over 50 hours each month and ensured prompt, consistent responses to their clients.
“I don’t remember life before Hiver when it comes to managing our front desk shared inbox. We’ve been using Hiver ever since the studio was operational. It’s been a very long time.”
– Pamela Brown, Co-Founder, Align Brooklyn
Finance: DecksDirect Streamlines Financial Communications
DecksDirect, a manufacturing company, struggled with managing their finance@ email address using Google Groups, leading to duplicated efforts and inefficiencies. Transitioning to Hiver allowed them to assign emails directly to team members, reducing confusion and internal email clutter. This shift resulted in processing finance-related emails 60% faster and a 45% increase in overall productivity. The team also benefited from features like email notes and easy reassignment of emails between departments.
“Prior to Hiver, our invoices would go to the Google Groups address and we’d have to constantly tell each other hey I start working here, and you take it from there. With Hiver, every protest that my team had with FrontApp was gone. They really wanted to use it. It’s so user-friendly and intuitive that I did not take long to onboard people.”
– Justine Accounts Specialist at DecksDirect
Travel: Travelist Cut Down Response Times by 50%
Travelist, a travel advisory business, was using multiple email accounts and tools to manage client conversations—making it hard to track who replied to what. After switching to Hiver, their entire team could work from a single shared inbox. Conversations were auto-assigned, status was visible to all, and nothing slipped through. They reduced response times by 50% and improved client satisfaction overnight.
“We got a little burned with Zendesk, so we didn’t want to commit. I was just looking at a better solution than Zendesk for us. With Hiver, Every team member knows exactly what they have to work on, and what their workload for the day looks like. There are no SLA violations now.”
– Jędrzej Dąbrowski, Junior Product Manager at Travelist
Education: Boise State University Brought Order to Campus Support
Boise State University’s team used to manage thousands of student, faculty, and staff requests across different email threads and inboxes. This made it tough to track accountability or measure performance. With Hiver, they centralized their communication and started using analytics to track query resolution, improve service delivery, and manage team workload more fairly. They were also able to save around 200 hours a month.
“We used to receive complaints from sponsors, faculty members, administrators, and others, asking why employees (who were on leave) don’t respond to emails. Ever since we started using Hiver, I rarely get any complaints. I love Hiver’s ‘Views’ capability from a manager’s perspective because we can see all the group’s tasks and drill down to an individual’s tasks as necessary.”
– Matt Smith, Deputy Director, OSP / Senior Director, Operations, DRED
Pro Tip: Limit inbox access for sensitive addresses (like hr@ or finance@) so only the right people can view or reply.
9. Best Practices to Manage a Shared Inbox Efficiently
A shared inbox can simplify team email, but without the right habits, it can still get messy—missed messages, duplicate replies, no visibility into who’s doing what. Here are the most effective ways to manage a shared inbox like a high-performing team.
1. Always assign ownership to every email
Every email that comes in needs to be owned by someone, ideally within minutes. Whether you’re manually assigning or using rules to auto-assign based on keywords, senders, or workload, ownership is what keeps things from falling through the cracks. It also gives each agent clarity on their responsibility.
More importantly, it avoids the classic issue where no one replies because everyone assumes someone else will. You can take this further by adding a default queue for unassigned emails and having someone (a lead or manager) review it hourly.
2. Use tags and filtered views to organize, prioritize, and route emails
Email Tags are the foundation of a shared mailbox. You should tag emails by priority, type, team, or workflow stage (like “Bug,” “Urgent,” “Vendor,” “Refund Request”).
These tags then power smart views: for example, your finance team can instantly access all “Pending Reimbursement” threads, while support agents can sort by “Unreplied Urgent.” Over time, these views can act as live dashboards—helping managers assess volume, agents find what matters, and workflows run cleanly without digging.
3. Collaborate directly within the inbox, not outside of it
If your team still forwards emails or screenshots threads into Slack, you’re creating fragmentation. Good shared inboxes offer internal notes and @mentions right inside the email thread. Use these for all internal communication related to a query—asking for technical help, tagging a manager, or providing context to another teammate taking over.
When context lives in the inbox, not across tools, it reduces miscommunication and makes hand-offs frictionless. The next person handling the thread can see the full decision trail in one place.
4. Define SLAs and make them visible to the team
Set realistic SLAs (service-level agreements) for each inbox or issue type, and make sure the team sees them. If urgent issues should be responded to within 30 minutes and general inquiries within 2 hours, build that into your shared inbox system with timers or visual indicators. Many shared inbox tools offer SLA alerts, so agents know when a reply is due, and managers can spot missed targets.
This adds discipline to the way your team works and prevents the inbox from becoming reactive and unmanageable during peak hours.
5. Avoid collisions with live activity tracking and clear status updates
Two people replying to the same email is a recipe for confusion. Choose a tool that shows live activity, like when someone is viewing or replying to a thread, and train your team to use clear statuses like “Open,” “Pending,” or “Closed.” It gets easy to track performance later, since you can report on email volumes by status, not just by time.
6. Automate wherever possible—but keep it smart
Not everything needs a human to intervene. Use automation for things like tagging emails based on keywords (“invoice,” “payment,” “cancel”), assigning emails from specific senders to the right teammate, or auto-closing threads that haven’t had activity in three days.
That said, don’t over-automate. Avoid generic auto-replies unless they add value. Automate the routing, not the relationship. The goal is to free up your team’s time, not make the experience robotic for customers or stakeholders.
7. Review team performance regularly using inbox metrics
A shared inbox gives you access to rich data—first response time, resolution time, email volume by user, tag trends, SLA breaches. Use this data to run weekly or monthly reviews with your team. Are urgent queries being handled fast enough? Is someone overloaded? Are refund requests piling up? When agents see that their numbers are being used for feedback, not policing, they become more proactive.
8. Restrict inbox access based on roles and responsibilities
If every team member has access to every inbox, things will eventually go wrong. A finance team shouldn’t be fielding HR requests. An intern shouldn’t be replying to legal escalations. Set permissions so only relevant people can access, assign, or respond within specific inboxes.
Use roles (agent, lead, admin) to control what actions each user can take. This improves security, keeps the inbox clutter-free, and reduces the risk of errors—especially in sensitive or regulated environments.
9. Maintain and review your inbox structure every month
Your inbox should evolve with your team. Set a monthly time to review automation rules, cleanup outdated tags, archive inactive threads, and assess whether your filters, views, and tags still reflect how your team works today. Small tweaks each month prevent bigger breakdowns later—and help you scale your shared inbox setup as your business grows.
10. Build a shared culture around how the inbox is used
This one’s less technical, but just as critical. A shared inbox isn’t just a tool—it’s a team habit. Agree on small things: How quickly do we respond? How should tags be used? What’s the etiquette for handing off an email? What do you do if you’re stuck?
Codifying this—whether in a short playbook or quick onboarding guide, makes it easier to bring in new team members and keeps everyone aligned.
10. Conclusion: Streamline Team Collaboration with a Shared Inbox
Managing a group inbox goes beyond access. A modern shared inbox platform changes that. It gives you structure:
- Every email has an owner.
- Every conversation has context.
- Every teammate works with clarity.
- And every workflow is trackable and improvable.
👉 What you can do next:
- Still on Gmail or Google Groups? Start by mapping out the gaps: Where are you losing track of emails? What’s your average response time?
- Already using a shared inbox tool? Revisit your setup: Are you using assignment rules, SLAs, reports, or tags to their full potential?
- Evaluating tools? Choose a platform that fits your team’s structure, integrates with your tools, and works where your team already lives (like Gmail).
Frequently Asked Qestions
1. What is the difference between a shared inbox and a distribution list?
2. Can multiple people reply from the same shared inbox without confusion?
3. Is it possible to assign emails to specific team members in a shared inbox?
4. Can a shared inbox be used for non-customer-facing teams?
5. How is a shared inbox different from delegated Gmail access?
6. Is a shared inbox secure for sensitive communications?
7. How do shared inboxes help with response time and SLAs?
8. Can a shared inbox connect with tools like CRMs or Slack?
9. Do shared inboxes work with Gmail or Outlook?
10. How do I know if my team has outgrown Google Groups or Collaborative Inbox?
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