An administrator creates a Shared Mailbox from the Zoho Mail control panel and adds the team members who should have access. Each authorised user can open the shared mailbox from within their own Zoho Mail account without logging out, as it appears as an additional mailbox in the sidebar. When a team member replies to a message, the reply is sent from the shared address rather than their personal address. All members see the same inbox, sent items, and folders, making it easy to see which messages have already been handled.
A Shared Mailbox is the right choice when a team address needs to receive and respond to messages collaboratively, with full visibility of conversation history. Customer support, billing, and general enquiry addresses are the most common use cases. It differs from a Distribution List in that members can reply from the shared address and can see each other’s responses, making it suitable for coordinated handling of customer requests rather than simple message forwarding.
Shared Mailbox availability and the number of members allowed per box may vary by Zoho Mail plan. All members share the same folder structure, so agree on a folder naming convention and process before granting access to avoid confusion. There is no per-member tracking of who replied to a specific message unless members manually add a note or label. For teams that need individual accountability per message, a helpdesk tool such as Zoho Desk may be a better fit.
A consumer electronics retailer in Delhi with three customer service executives set up a Shared Mailbox at support@company.in. All three staff accessed the shared inbox from their individual Zoho Mail accounts. When one executive replied to a customer, the others could see the reply in the sent folder immediately, preventing duplicate responses. The company saw a drop in customers receiving two different answers to the same query within the first week of setup.
Yes. The Zoho Mail mobile app supports Shared Mailbox access. After the administrator grants access, the shared mailbox appears in the app and the user can compose and reply from the shared address on their phone just as they would on the desktop.
A Distribution List forwards a copy of incoming messages to each member’s personal inbox, and members reply from their own addresses. A Shared Mailbox is a single inbox all members access together, where replies come from the shared address and all members see a unified conversation history.
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