What is the shared email inbox?
The shared email inbox in Nutshell gives your team a central place to receive and manage incoming emails.
If leads are coming in through a shared email address like sales at your company or being sent from other tools, this keeps everything in one place in Nutshell, so your team can see what is happening and jump in when needed. It helps avoid missed messages and makes it easier to work together on incoming conversations.
How it works
When an email is sent to your shared inbox, it becomes a thread that your team can view and manage within Nutshell.
Each account includes a dedicated Nutshell email address. Once you forward your emails there, every incoming message becomes a thread. From there, you can assign it to a teammate, reply to it, and decide if it should become a lead.
Nutshell AI helps you quickly understand each email by pulling useful details like contact and company information and showing a short summary at the top of the thread.
It reads the full email to understand the message and uses that context to support how your inbox is organised. This includes:
identifying what type of email it is (spam, enquiry, service update, or transaction)
recognizing when a real person is mentioned inside the message, even if they are not the sender
helping ensure the right person becomes the lead when needed
This means your team spends less time sorting messages and more time responding to real conversations.
Set up your shared inbox
Getting set up requires a few steps. You can start by connecting one shared email address. Navigate to Engagement > Setup > Email.
Add email address and sender name
The first step requires you to enter the email address you wish to use for the shared inbox. This email address can be changed later and you can also add additional emails to flow into the shared inbox.
The second step requires you to enter the sender name you wish to use for the shared inbox. When you send emails from the shared email inbox, this is the name that will show up in your customer’s inbox. Just like the email address, the name can be changed later.
Find your Nutshell inbox address
Your account includes a unique email address that looks something like ibx_i0068e_1ed70ec324@nutshellemail.com. This is the address you will forward emails to so they appear in Nutshell.
Forward your existing emails
To bring emails into Nutshell, you will need to set up forwarding from your current shared address.
If you are using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, follow the steps below.
Forwarding with Google Workspace
Step-by-step instructions:
Start by logging into your Google Workspace Admin Console at https://admin.google.com using admin credentials.
Head to Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail and look for the Default Routing section.
When adding a setting:
Enter your support email address (for example, support@yourdomain.com) in the Envelope Recipient field.
Under Envelope Recipient, select Change Envelope Recipient. In Replace Recipient, enter your Nutshell forwarding address.
Save the routing rule.
Edit the rule you created and ensure the option under Options is set to: "Perform this action on non-recognized and recognized addresses."
In Nutshell, verify your forwarding address
Forwarding with Microsoft 365
Step-by-step instructions:
Log into your Microsoft 365 Admin security page and allow forwarding in anti-spam settings
Navigate to security.microsoft.com > Email and Collaboration > Policies and rules > Threat policies > Anti spam > Anti-spam outbound policy (Default) > Edit protection settings > Automatic forwarding rules > “On - forwarding is enabled”
Log into your Microsoft 365 Admin Center by visiting https://admin.microsoft.com and signing in with your admin credentials.
Select the mailbox that you wish to configure forwarding for:
Shared mailbox: On the admin center homepage, go to the Teams & groups > Shared mailboxes page
Select the mailbox, then select Edit in the "Email forwarding" section.
Then enter your Nutshell forwarding address that you copied from Nutshell’s email forwarding instructions and select Save and exit the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
On the "Shared mailbox" email forwarding side panel, select the "Forward all email sent to this mailbox" checkbox.
Return to Nutshell and select Verify automatic forwarding.
Verifying email forwarding
Once you have configured email forwarding via Google workspace or Microsoft 365, return to the shared email inbox settings and click the “Send test email” button.
If the forwarding is configured successfully, you will see a “Verified” status badge in the forwarding section.
If the forwarding is not successful, you will see a “Failed” status badge in the forwarding section.
Replying from your shared email inbox
In order to reply to emails from the shared email inbox, you must verify the domain you wish to send from.
If you have already done this through the domains page in Nutshell, you will see a “Verified” status badge in the replying section and no further action is required.
If you have not already done so, you will be prompted to “Start setup”. This process is done via Entri and requires you to add domain records. These records verify your ownership of the domain and are required to send emails from the domain.
Please note that domain records take time to verify and this step will not be verified instantly. In most cases, these records will be verified within an hour, but this process can take up to 48 hours depending on the domain provider.
For more help with this step, please reference this support article.
Successfully configured inbox
Once successfully set up, you’ll see ‘Verified’ statuses for forwarding and replying on the Email address settings page:
Manage spam filtering
Nutshell includes a spam filtering setting that helps you automatically manage unwanted emails in your shared inbox.
When this setting is turned on, Nutshell AI reviews incoming emails and helps decide whether they should:
stay in your inbox
move to spam
be turned into a lead
This setting is found in the Spam filtering section on the Shared email inbox setup page.
You can:
Turn it on to let Nutshell AI automatically filter and organise emails
Turn it off if you prefer to review everything manually
You can also guide how AI spam filtering behaves by telling it which emails to always trust and which ones to block. This helps improve accuracy and keeps your inbox aligned with what matters to your team.
In the Sender allow list, you can add email addresses or domains for people or companies you always want to hear from. Emails from these senders will never be filtered as spam, even if Nutshell AI thinks they look suspicious.
In your Sender denylist, you can add email addresses or domains for senders you never want in your inbox. Emails from these senders will always be sent to spam automatically.
What happens to each type of email
Marketing and newsletters
Nutshell AI filters out emails that are not relevant so your inbox stays clean and focused. These emails will be:
moved to the Spam box
clearly labeled as spam
not used to create a lead
Direct inquiries
When a prospect emails your team directly, Nutshell AI treats it as a real opportunity. These emails will be:
turned into a lead
the sender set as the primary contact
the email thread linked to that person
Lead notifications from services
Some emails come from platforms or providers like G2, Zoom etc but include details about a real person in the message. Nutshell AI separates the sender from the actual opportunity so the correct person becomes the lead. These emails will be:
linked to the original sender so you can always see where the email came from
used to create a new person based on the details in the email
used to create a lead for that person, not the provider
set with the correct person as the primary contact on the lead
Transactional emails
Some emails are informational and do not represent a sales opportunity, such as invoices or receipts. These emails will be:
kept visible in your inbox
not turned into a lead
Viewing and managing spam
Emails marked as spam are not deleted. They are simply moved out of your main inbox.
To review them:
Open your email inbox
Select the Spam filter
From here you can:
Mark a thread as Not spam to return it to your inbox
Mark a thread as Spam if it was missed
Add lead creation rules
You can set up rules so that Nutshell automatically creates leads from new inbound emails. Nutshell uses AI to read the email and extract contact and company information from signatures, making it easier to capture leads without manual entry.
You can also choose a pipeline for these leads and add a tag to help organize and track them. This is especially helpful if your team receives many new inquiries and wants every lead to be properly tracked from the moment it arrives.
Choose how threads are assigned
Inbound emails can be handled in a way that works best for your team. You can select Round-robin assignment so new messages are distributed evenly among teammates, making sure no one gets overloaded.
If you prefer, you can assign all incoming emails to a specific person by selecting their name from the dropdown. Or you can select Nobody leaving threads unassigned, and allow your team to pick them up and assign them manually from the shared email inbox.
When a lead is created from a thread, the conversation automatically follows the lead owner, keeping everything connected and easy to manage.
Work with email threads
Access your email threads under Engagement > Inbox > Email.
Threads are where your team reads, replies, and collaborates on incoming emails. They keep the full conversation in one place, including incoming messages, replies from your team, and any internal notes.
If you want to leave a note for your team, you can add an internal note right from the top of the text box. Click the arrow dropdown and select Add internal note. Your note will be attached to the thread but will not be sent to the customer, making it a great way to share context, reminders, or updates with your team.
When replying to emails, you can choose the Use your signature checkbox to automatically include your email signature. You can also format your email with rich text, add images, and make your emails look exactly how you want before sending.
Understand thread status
To help you stay organized, each thread has a status.
New, open threads are active conversations. Closed threads are finished, and spam threads are filtered out so they do not clutter your workspace.
If a closed thread receives a new reply, it will reopen automatically so nothing slips through.
Receive notifications
When a thread is assigned to you or a response is received, you’ll receive an in-app notification. This way you are up to date with the status of your chat and can act accordingly.
Tips for best results
Review your Spam folder occasionally to make sure nothing important was filtered
Use the allowlist and denylist to guide Nutshell AI decisions
Mark emails as spam or not spam to improve accuracy over time
FAQs
Can I reply to emails directly from Nutshell?
Yes. Once your domain is verified, you can reply directly from the shared inbox and your customers will see your configured sender name.
Can I reply to emails directly from Nutshell?
Yes. Once your domain is verified, you can reply directly from the shared inbox and your customers will see your configured sender name.
Can I turn off AI spam detection?
Yes. You can turn it off at any time from your Share email inbox settings.
Will spam emails be deleted?
No. They are moved to the Spam view so you can review them if needed.
How does Nutshell AI decide who the lead is?
AI reads the full email content. If the message includes details about a different person, that person can be created as the lead instead of the sender.
Can I fix something that was marked incorrectly?
Yes. You can mark any thread as spam or not spam, and AI will learn from that over time.