How to Setup a Gmail Shared Inbox

If you’re here searching for how to set up a shared inbox in Gmail for customer-facing teams, you’ve probably realized that Gmail doesn’t offer this natively. Frustrating, right?

However, just because Gmail wasn’t built for shared inboxes doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. There are plenty of solutions that can get the job done.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the best options for creating a Gmail shared inbox that works for your team. We’ll break down how each solution operates, the pros and cons, and which one might actually make your job easier. 

Spoiler: there’s no one-size-fits-all here, but by the end, you’ll know exactly what’s going to help you keep things running smoothly.

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What is a Gmail shared inbox?

A shared inbox is exactly what it sounds like. An email inbox that multiple people can access and use to send and receive emails.

A Gmail shared mailbox is typically used to help sales or support teams manage outgoing and incoming emails. It lets multiple team members handle incoming messages, respond, and keep track of conversations without stepping on each other’s toes.

In an ideal setup, you’ll also have team collaborative features, internal notes, email templates, and various repeatable workflows and rules. 

Why isn’t there a native shared inbox in Gmail?

Gmail was built with individuals and small teams in mind. Its features, like email delegation or forwarding, work fine for basic needs but don’t fully address the challenges of managing a team inbox. When multiple people need to handle incoming messages, assign tasks, and track conversations, Gmail’s native tools fall short.

This gap has opened the door for third-party solutions, like Keeping, that offer a more robust way for teams to access multiple inboxes and collaborate on email without leaving Gmail behind.

How should a shared inbox work?

Let me illustrate this with an example…

Let’s say you set up a shared inbox for your customer service team with the email address ‘support@company.com.’ Every team member can access this inbox by logging into their own email account. No need for separate login credentials or unique passwords for the shared mailbox.

When a customer emails ‘support@company.com,’ the message will be delivered to all team members. Any member of the team can read and respond to the email, and the response will come from the same shared email address. The customer won’t know who specifically replied. They’ll just see that it came from ‘support@company.com.’

If the customer responds again, that reply will also go to everyone on the team. This ensures no communication is missed and allows your team to work together as if they were the sole owner of the inbox. The customer only sees the shared address, so the process also feels personal and seamless from their perspective.

2 most common use cases for shared inboxes

Shared inboxes are particularly useful in two key areas: sales and customer support. Both teams handle high volumes of communication. A shared inbox allows them to work together. All while ensuring no lead or customer inquiry slip through the cracks. 

Let’s take a closer look at how shared inboxes work in each scenario.

Sales

Let’s say you run a niche outdoor gear and sporting goods store. Your frontline sales reps all use the shared email ‘sales@company.com.’ When a potential customer sends an inquiry, that email goes to everyone on the team. This means any available salesperson can respond, so no opportunity is missed.

So, if a lead emails about a specific tent, anyone can jump in and reply quickly. This speeds up response times, which is critical in retail sales, where a fast follow-up can make or break a sale. When the lead responds, the message is still visible to the whole team. Even if another salesperson picks it up later, the customer won’t notice the switch because it all comes from ‘sales@company.com.’

The benefit? More sales, faster responses, better teamwork, and no confusion about who’s handling what. It also prevents double replies or unanswered emails, which are common issues in a non-shared inbox setup.

Support

Sticking with the same outdoor gear example, you can do the same with all of your customer service emails using ‘support@company.com.’ A customer emails with a technical issue or a product question. That message gets delivered to the entire support team so anyone available can respond quickly.

For instance, if a customer emails asking how to reset their account password, anyone on the support team can step in. The shared inbox allows for quick delegation. One team member responds to the email thread, while others focus on different issues. If that customer needs further assistance, their follow-up emails will continue to go to everyone. The customer never feels the handoff because all communication comes from the same ‘support@company.com’ address.

This setup ensures that customer inquiries are handled promptly, even when specific team members are unavailable. It also avoids the common issue of emails being missed or left unanswered when a single inbox is managed by multiple people without a clear system in place.

Related Reading: 7 Essential Customer Service Skills (And How To Master Them) 

The best Gmail shared inbox workarounds for small teams

When it comes to a shared inbox, here are three of the most common GSuite ticketing systems.

Keeping

Keeping lets everyone in your team receive, respond to and assign support emails directly from within their own mailbox. How? Keeping does this by turning your Gmail, G Suite or Google Workspace account into a shared mailbox built for teams.

All support emails from your group email get organized in a new section of your mailbox and are separated from your regular emails. This makes it easier for your team to juggle their customer support efforts and the rest of their workload.

Keeping also gives you access to the features your team needs to communicate and collaborate on support requests. For example, Keeping lets you assign tickets to other team members so that everyone knows which support emails they are responsible for, and nothing is left unanswered.

Some of Keeping’s core features include:

• Task Assignment: Keeping converts every Gmail email in your shared inbox into an assignable help desk ticket so you can share the workload with your team.
  
• Status Updates: Change the status on tickets in your shared inbox to Open, Closed, or Pending so you can keep track of everything on your team’s plate.
  
• Shared Notes: Communicate with your team to follow up on a task, ask a question, or provide background information on an assignment in real time using the shared email notes feature.
  
• Shared Templates: Save time responding to frequently asked questions by inserting a response template instead of manually typing out the answer over and over again.
  
• Reporting: Review key metrics such as the volume of incoming requests, average inquiries per day, and the average first response time.
  
• Workflows: Use “if/then” logic to automate time-consuming tasks such as assigning emails, prioritizing tickets, and removing spam from your team’s inbox.
  
• Collision Detection: Keeping puts an end to duplicated efforts by preventing multiple people on your team from working on the same customer support request.
  
• Third-Party Integrations: Connect to your favorite tools, including Shopify, Google Sheets, Slack, CRM, or project management tools, so all of your data is available within your Gmail inbox.

Regardless of whether your team has two or 200 people, Keeping can help you keep your customer support efforts organized.  

Who should use it?

Keeping is ideal for small to medium-sized teams who need an easy way to manage customer support emails without the complexity of enterprise-level tools like Zendesk or HubSpot. It’s perfect for teams that already work in Gmail and want to keep everything in one place.

There’s no need for your team to learn new software or switch platforms. Everything happens in the familiar Gmail environment, which saves time and reduces the learning curve. 

Plus, customers will never know you’re using a shared inbox tool because all emails come from your regular support address. There are no confusing ticket IDs or customer service jargon. And unlike many help desk tools, Keeping ensures your data remains yours, stored within your own email accounts even if you stop using the service.

Pros

Simply put, Keeping is the fastest, simplest way to share a mailbox in Google Workspace. Here’s why. 

• It works within your Gmail inbox. Your team won’t need to log into a new program or learn how to use a new tool in order to use Keeping. Why? Keeping works directly within your Gmail inbox, which is where you already spend a good chunk of your day.
  
• It is great for small teams. It’s designed for small to medium-sized teams that need collaboration tools without the complexity of larger, corporate-level solutions. Your team also won’t need to log in and log out of multiple accounts to manage your team inbox and their personal work inboxes. Keeping brings everything together in the same place.
  
• It’s invisible to your customers. Your customers will never know you are using Keeping to manage your customer support efforts. They won’t see any confusing help desk jargon such as “case ID” or “reply above this line” when they email your support team. All they will see is a friendly email sent from your team’s support account.
  
• Get improved transparency and organization. Keeping provides transparency into what everyone is working on, so your team won’t waste time duplicating someone else’s efforts. Plus, emails are automatically separated from personal inboxes, and tasks are clearly assigned to team members, ensuring nothing is missed.
  
• It is more efficient. Keeping allows you to automate repetitive tasks, saving your team time and boosting productivity. Automation, templates, and other features can save your team a significant amount of time and improve their efficiency.
  
• Get detailed insights. Reporting features provide valuable data about customer support inquiries, response times, and overall team performance. So you can make informed, data-driven decisions.
  
• Your data will always belong to you. Other help desk tools will hold onto your data if you stop using their services. But that’s not how it works at Keeping. We believe your data should always belong to you, which is why your emails will remain in your email accounts even if you choose to stop using our services.
  
• Help is always available. If you need help, someone on our support team is standing by reading to help. You will never speak to a chatbot. When you reach out for help, you will always be connected to a real, live human.

Cons

While Keeping is a great solution for many support teams, it might not be ideal if you need the following.  

• It is not ideal for very large teams. If you have hundreds of customer service reps or need advanced features that connect across multiple departments, enterprise tools like Zendesk might be better suited to your needs.
  
• Limited complex automations and workflows. While it offers automation, Keeping may not be robust enough for companies with highly complex support structures or deep integration requirements.

Pricing 

Keeping is also a more affordable solution for teams that need better email management without breaking the bank. Setup takes just minutes, and the pricing scales according to your team size. Small teams can get started at a low monthly cost of $14 per user per month, while larger teams may want to explore more advanced features. 

Google Groups

If you are looking for a free, no-frills shared email communication option, you can use Google Collaborative Inbox since it allows multiple people to view and respond to messages.

While it’s easy to set up and use, Google Groups isn’t designed for individual teams, let alone replacing dedicated customer service software. There are a lot of limitations, including a clunky user interface, no task board, lack of team collaboration and status tracking features, and more. 

Who should use it? 

Google Groups can work for very small teams or short-lived collaboration projects where formal ticketing isn’t necessary. For teams looking for something simple and free, it’s a functional, if limited, option.

Pros

• It is easy to set up. Setting up a Google Group takes just a few steps, and the “Collaborative Inbox” feature is free to use with Google Workspace.
  
• It improves collaboration. It gives teams more visibility into shared emails and allows them to collaborate on responses.
  
• Familiar interface. Teams that already use Gmail will find it easy to transition into using Google Groups for shared inboxes.

Cons

• It is easy to duplicate your efforts. Without built-in collaboration and task assignment features, team members need to rely on external messaging apps, which complicates things. And it is easy for multiple team members to end up working on the same tickets. So, you wind up with customers receiving multiple replies, potentially with different info, to the same inquiry. 
  
• Requests fall through the cracks. There’s no system to ensure all emails are answered. Everyone sees the emails, but it’s easy for team members to assume someone else will handle it.
  
• No accountability. The lack of task assignments makes it difficult to hold team members accountable for handling specific inquiries.
  
• It can lead to unbalanced workloads. You can’t assign emails to individuals, so it’s hard to ensure work is distributed evenly across the team.
  
• You can only add people from your company domain. You can only add other people from your company to your shared inbox, so it won’t work if you are trying to grant access to someone using their personal email.
  
• There is a lack of transparency. There are no reporting tools, so you won’t have access to data on response times, ticket volumes, or team performance. For instance, you won’t see how many requests your team is receiving on a daily or weekly basis. You also won’t know how long it takes for your team to respond to these requests on average. Without this information, it’s difficult for you to make important business decisions that could improve your customer service.
  
• It creates a suboptimal customer experience. For starters, it doesn’t allow for a clean, unified customer communication experience, and there is no way to assign or prioritize “emails.” Not to mention, messages sent by a Google Group also include a “click here to unsubscribe” link, which doesn’t look great to your customers.
  
• You will outgrow it. As your team grows or your support needs become more complex, the limitations of Google Groups will become more apparent.

Pricing 

Google Groups, including the “Collaborative Inbox” feature, is free for Google Workspace and G Suite users. In terms of time, setting up Google Groups is quick and easy, with no technical expertise needed. However, the time cost comes later, as the lack of automation, accountability, and transparency means more manual work for your team to stay organized and ensure customer inquiries are handled properly.

The DIY route: Sharing one account and one password

Some teams may be tempted to take the simplest route by sharing a single email address and password among multiple people. 

For teams of 1-2 people who need a bare-bones shared inbox solution, this method might be tempting. But be warned: Google’s system isn’t designed for this, and you’ll likely encounter more headaches than it’s worth, especially when it comes to security and usability. 

Sharing passwords is not a sustainable option. Not only does it pose a huge security risk, but Google has built-in mechanisms to make this approach inconvenient. Google will often log users out of shared accounts and require an SMS code to log back in if it suspects multiple users are accessing the same account from different locations.

Who should use it?

While sharing a single Gmail account might seem like the fastest and cheapest solution, the security risks and lack of functionality make it a poor choice for most teams. It’s difficult to manage, creates inefficiencies, and opens the door to potential data breaches.

If you do intend to go this route, it is best for teams of 1-2 people who don’t need much structure or accountability and are only dealing with low volumes of customer inquiries. However, for most teams, this method is too risky and inefficient.

Pros

We’re hesitant to include any pros with this solution because of all of the potential headaches and lack of secure access. However, if you need something lightweight in a pinch, there are a couple of pros.

• It is easy to set up. All it requires is sharing a password, so it’s fast to get started.
  
• It improves collaboration (sort of). Everyone has visibility over all of the emails in the inbox. 

Cons

• There are massive security concerns. Sharing a password is a major security risk. The more people who have access, the higher the chance of unauthorized access.
  
• You are going to run into account-sharing issues. Google often logs users out and requires verification via SMS if it detects multiple people logging in from different locations or devices. This can disrupt your workflow, especially if team members are remote or logging in from different countries.
  
• This will result in duplicate efforts. Without task assignment and built-in collaboration features, multiple people may respond to the same email, leading to confusion and inefficiency.
  
• Requests fall through the cracks. With no clear ownership of emails, it’s easy for inquiries to go unanswered as everyone assumes someone else will handle them.
  
• No accountability and unbalanced workloads for team members. Since there’s no way to assign emails or track their progress, team members aren’t held accountable for specific tasks. This means some team members may end up shouldering a much bigger load than others. 
  
• There is a lack of transparency and data. You won’t have any visibility into who is handling what or any reporting on how fast issues are being resolved. There’s also no way to track team performance.

Pricing 

This DIY route is technically free, but the costs come in terms of inefficiency and security risks. While setting it up is quick, the time lost due to duplicated efforts, team confusion, and security issues can add up quickly. Plus, if your password is compromised, the financial cost could be far greater.

Ready to level up your shared inbox experience with Keeping

If your team is looking for a simple yet powerful way to provide exceptional customer service without leaving Gmail, Keeping is a great inbox software solution. It’s easy to set up, packed with features, and designed for teams who need an affordable way to stay organized while managing customer support.

Start your Keeping 14-day free trial today and see how easy it can be to improve your team’s communication.

Ready to level up your shared inbox?

Keeping makes it easy to share a Gmail account. Collaborate in Gmail without any complicated software.

See How Easy It Is