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How shared inboxes work

An address the whole team answers from, with the same folders as any other mailbox.

A shared inbox is an address more than one person answers: sales@, service@, accounts@. Every member sees the same mail, and nobody owns it the way an individual mailbox is owned.

A tour of a shared inbox and the folders inside it
TeamEmail with the Shared Inboxes section of the sidebar showing four team mailboxes: Accounts, Sales and Quotes, Service Desk and Workshop. Accounts is expanded and its Inbox is selected, revealing the same five folders as any mailbox: Inbox with 5, Sent Items, Archive with 1, Junk Email and Deleted Items.
Four shared inboxes, one expanded. The folders inside are the same five every mailbox has.

What is inside one

Expanding a shared inbox reveals the real Outlook folders behind it, not a TeamEmail invention. They behave exactly as they do in a personal mailbox, with one difference that matters: every member is looking at the same contents.

  • InboxMail as it arrives, visible to every member rather than to one owner.
  • Sent ItemsEverything sent from the address, whichever member sent it.
  • ArchiveConversations put out of the way, which return to Open if someone replies.
  • Junk EmailMail Outlook has flagged as spam.
  • Deleted ItemsMail a member has removed from another folder.

Who can see and change one

Membership is what grants access: a shared inbox is invisible to anyone who is not a member of it. Only an administrator can create one or change who belongs to it, from Settings > Inboxes.

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