Trupeo does not keep a copy of your mailbox off on the side: it works inside it. What you do in Trupeo is applied at your provider, and what you do from Gmail, Outlook or the mail app on your phone comes back into Trupeo.
Here is the exact list, in both directions, then what changes depending on your provider.
What your actions in Trupeo do to your mailbox
| In Trupeo | In your mailbox |
|---|---|
| You open a conversation | Nothing |
| You assign it to someone | Its messages are marked read |
| You remove the assignment | Its messages go back to unread |
| You click “Mark as done” | Its messages are marked read and leave the inbox |
| You reply to a handled conversation | Its messages come back to the inbox |
| You click “Delete” | Its messages go to the trash |
| You click “Restore” | Its messages go back where they came from |
| You send, reply or forward | The email really leaves from the shared address |
Four details worth knowing.
Opening a conversation does not mark it read in your mailbox. That is deliberate: a shared mailbox is read by several people, and one of them opening a message does not mean the team has dealt with it. Marking it read at your provider would also wipe the unread state for colleagues who read the mailbox from their own mail software. Trupeo therefore only does it at the two moments that commit the team: when the conversation is assigned to someone, and when it is marked done. Inside Trupeo the conversation does stop showing as unread as soon as you open it.
“Mark as done” does not delete anything. The email leaves the inbox, exactly as if you had archived it yourself. It stays available in Trupeo, under “Done”, and at your provider, in the archive.
“Restore” does not mean “put it back in the inbox”. Before moving a message, Trupeo records where it was, and puts it back there. An email that was already archived and then deleted goes back to the archive, not to the inbox.
A conversation you delete in Trupeo keeps its content for 30 days. After that, the text and attachments are erased from our servers. The email itself stays in your provider’s trash under that provider’s own rules.
What your actions in the mailbox do in Trupeo
| In your mailbox | In Trupeo |
|---|---|
| An email arrives | A conversation appears under “To assign”, or the email joins the existing thread |
| An email arrives on a handled conversation | The conversation reopens |
| You read an email, or mark it unread again | Trupeo shows the same state |
| You move an email to junk | The conversation moves to “Spam” |
| You take an email out of junk | The conversation comes back |
| You delete an email permanently | The message disappears from Trupeo, and its content is erased from our servers within 7 days |
The rest depends on your provider.
What changes depending on your provider
It all comes down to one thing: which folders Trupeo watches.
- Gmail: the inbox, spam, and sent messages that belong to a conversation Trupeo already follows.
- Microsoft: the inbox, junk email, and sent items that belong to a conversation Trupeo already follows.
- IMAP: every folder on the server.
What happens in those folders reaches Trupeo. What happens anywhere else does not. In practice, from your mail app:
You reply to a customer. On all three, the reply shows up in the Trupeo thread, in its place, as long as the conversation is one Trupeo already follows. Your teammates therefore see that an answer went out, even when it was not written from Trupeo.
You archive an email. Gmail and Microsoft: nothing changes in Trupeo, the conversation is not marked done. IMAP: it moves to “Done”.
You move an email to the trash. Gmail and IMAP: the conversation moves to Trupeo’s trash. Microsoft: nothing changes in Trupeo.
So it is the filing, not the replies, that still differs from one provider to the next.
Gmail and Google Workspace
Gmail files by label, not by folder. “Mark as done” simply removes the “Inbox” label: the email stays under “All Mail”, nothing is lost.
Trupeo reads the inbox, spam, and sent messages on a conversation it already follows. An email you had archived before connecting Trupeo is not imported, and a conversation you archive from Gmail is not marked done in Trupeo.
A reply written straight from Gmail does show up in the Trupeo thread, as long as Trupeo already follows that conversation. Your teammates therefore see that an answer went out, even when it was not written from Trupeo. An email sent from Gmail on a subject Trupeo knows nothing about stays out: the shared mailbox does not hoover up all your outgoing mail.
The other way round, emails sent from Trupeo do show up in Gmail’s “Sent Mail” as usual.
Microsoft 365 and Outlook
Microsoft files by folder. “Mark as done” therefore really moves the email to the Archive folder, and “Delete” to Deleted Items.
Trupeo follows the inbox, junk email, and sent items on a conversation it already follows. An email you move to another folder from Outlook leaves Trupeo’s field of view: the conversation stays in Trupeo, but it stops reflecting what happens to that email. Do your filing from Trupeo rather than from Outlook.
A reply written straight from Outlook does show up in the Trupeo thread, as long as the conversation is one Trupeo already follows. Your teammates therefore see that an answer went out, even when it was not written from Trupeo. An email sent from Outlook on a subject Trupeo knows nothing about stays out: the shared mailbox does not hoover up all your outgoing mail.
Emails sent from Trupeo do appear in your “Sent Items”.
IMAP
An IMAP mailbox works the other way round: Trupeo reads every folder on the server, not just the inbox.
That is good news on one count. A reply written from your own mail software does show up in the Trupeo thread, because it is filed in the server’s “Sent” folder, which Trupeo reads too. In the same way, moving an email to the Archive folder moves the conversation to “Done” in Trupeo.
Emails sent from Trupeo are filed in the server’s “Sent” folder too, so your own mail software keeps a record of them exactly as if you had written them there.
Two things to know all the same.
- Trupeo creates the archive, trash or junk folder if your server has none. “Mark as done”, “Delete” and marking as spam each need their folder. If one is missing, Trupeo creates it the first time it is needed, as your own mail software would. If the server refuses, the email stays where it is, and a banner above the conversation list tells you which folder to create.
- Your own filing folders come in too, since Trupeo reads everything. A carefully filed IMAP mailbox can therefore show conversations in Trupeo that you thought were put away. Your Drafts folder is the one exception: an unfinished message is not correspondence and never reaches the shared inbox.
What never leaves Trupeo
Everything that belongs to teamwork stays in Trupeo and appears nowhere at your provider:
- internal notes;
- the assignment itself, of which only the effect on read state shows in the mailbox;
- the shared contacts book;
- a conversation’s activity history.
Nobody opening the mailbox from Gmail or Outlook will see your notes or who is handling what.
How long it takes
Gmail and Microsoft notify Trupeo. A new email therefore arrives almost immediately, without Trupeo having to poll the server.
An IMAP mailbox is polled. Trupeo keeps a connection open to the server when the server allows it, and otherwise checks every 5 minutes on an active mailbox, every 15 minutes when the last email is more than an hour old, and every 45 minutes when the mailbox has been quiet for more than a day.
In every case, a full check every 3 hours catches anything that may have been missed. And in the other direction, your actions in Trupeo are sent to your provider in the background, usually within seconds.
If something stops coming through
A sync that stops dead almost always means lost access: a changed password, a withdrawn authorisation, a revoked app password. Trupeo then shows a banner above the conversation list. The steps are in Reconnecting a paused mailbox.
If the mailbox is not paused and an email is still missing, wait for the full check, then look at which folder it sits in at your provider: that is almost always the answer.