Shared Inboxes for Team Addresses
A shared inbox is an address like support@ or info@ that several people on your team read and reply from together, each signing in with their own mailbox credentials rather than passing one password around.
Most small teams start by making support@ a forwarder, discover that nobody knows which messages have been answered, and then make it a mailbox with a shared password. A shared inbox is the fix for both problems: the mail lives in one place with one read/unread state, and every person who opens it does so as themselves.
What a Shared Inbox Actually Is
When you create a shared inbox, Kapsule creates a real storage location on our mail platform with its own address and its own message store, then grants each member mailbox access to it. Mail sent to the address lands once, in one place. When a member opens it, they see the same folder state everyone else sees, so a message marked read is read for the whole team.
That is the important difference from the other fan-out features in the Email console:
| Feature | Mail arrives | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | Once, in a shared store everyone opens | An address the team works, like support@ or accounts@ |
| Forwarder | A copy in each destination inbox | Sending an address on to one or two people who each handle it |
| Distribution group | A copy to each internal member | Announcements to a fixed internal group |
| Mailing list | A copy to every member | A list people can subscribe to and leave |
If two people need to see a message but only one will act on it, a forwarder is fine. If two people need to work the same queue without stepping on each other, use a shared inbox.
Before You Create One
You need at least one mailbox on the domain first. If the account has no mailboxes, the create panel tells you so directly: "You need at least one mailbox before creating a shared inbox. Add a mailbox first." Members are chosen from existing mailboxes, so there is nothing to add until you have one.
You also need the right role. Creating, deleting and changing the membership of a shared inbox all require the Owner or Admin role on the account. If you hold a lower role the buttons appear with a lock icon and a tooltip explaining which permission is missing. See Account Security if you need someone's role changed.
Creating a Shared Inbox
- Sign in to KPanel and click Email in the left sidebar.
- Open the Shared Inboxes tab.
- Click Create shared inbox.
- In Address, type the part before the @, for example
support. The field forces lowercase as you type. - Choose the domain from the dropdown beside it.
- Optionally set a Display name, for example "Support Team". This is what recipients see beside the address.
- Optionally tick some Initial members. The picker lists the mailboxes already on your account.
- Click Create shared inbox.
The address must be between 1 and 64 characters and can contain letters, numbers, dots, underscores and hyphens, starting and ending with a letter or number. The domain has to be one you already have a mailbox on, and the address cannot collide with an existing mailbox or another shared inbox.
Adding and Removing Members
Each shared inbox card has a Members control that expands the member list. From there:
- To add someone, pick their mailbox from the Add a mailbox as member... dropdown and click Add.
- To remove someone, use the remove control on their row.
Members must be existing mailboxes on the same account. You cannot add an external address such as a personal Gmail account as a member: if you try, the panel tells you the address "is not a mailbox on this account." If somebody outside your account genuinely needs a copy of the mail, add them as a destination on a separate forwarder instead.
Every member has the same level of access. There is no owner, agent or viewer distinction inside a shared inbox, and the card simply shows a Shared access pill. If you need one person to see the mail but not send from the address, a shared inbox is not the right tool.
Storage and Limits
A shared inbox is created with 10 GB of storage. That figure is set by the platform when the inbox is created and is not adjustable from the panel, so a busy support queue with large attachments needs an occasional clear-out rather than an upgrade. The Email Premium 50 GB upgrade applies to individual mailboxes, not to shared inboxes.
There is no cap on how many shared inboxes an account can create, and no cap on how many members each one has. The only real constraint is that every member has to be a mailbox you are already paying for.
Give a shared inbox a display name from the start. Replies from support@ that show up as a bare address look like automated mail, and recipients are noticeably less likely to reply to them. "Acme Support" reads as a person on the other end.
Reading and Replying
Members reach the shared inbox through their own mailbox. Sign in to webmail as yourself, and the shared inbox appears alongside your own mail. See Accessing Your Email via Webmail for how to open webmail from the panel with one click, and Setting Up an Email Client if you would rather work in a desktop or mobile client.
Because the mail store is shared, the usual etiquette applies: flag or move a message when you pick it up so a colleague does not answer it twice, and use folders rather than deleting, since a delete removes the message for everyone.
Deleting a Shared Inbox
Open the shared inbox card and click Delete. The confirmation is explicit about what happens:
"The shared inbox and all its stored mail are permanently removed. Members lose access. This cannot be undone." Unlike a mailbox, which goes through a seven-day deletion grace period, a shared inbox and its message history are removed straight away. Export or forward anything you need to keep first.
After deletion, mail sent to the address bounces, because the address no longer exists on the platform.
Troubleshooting
"Created, but some members couldn't be added." The inbox itself was created successfully and the failure was on the membership step only. Open the card, expand Members, and add the missing people manually. Nothing was lost.
The create button is greyed out with a lock icon. Your role does not include mailbox write access. Only Owner and Admin can manage shared inboxes.
The domain I want is not in the dropdown. The domain list is built from domains where your account already has a mailbox. Create a mailbox on that domain first, then come back.
A member cannot see the shared inbox in their mail client. Some clients need to be told to subscribe to shared folders explicitly. Have them check webmail first: if it appears there, the account is correct and the issue is client-side folder subscription.
Mail to the address is going to spam at the recipient's end. That is an authentication problem, not a shared-inbox problem. Work through Why Are My Emails Going to Spam? and the Deliverability tab on any mailbox at that domain.
Related reading: Email Forwarding, Distribution Groups, Mailing Lists, and Email Aliases.