A team note is what you would have written on a sticky note pinned to the email: been with us for years, we already gave them a gesture, spoke to him on the phone, he calls back Monday. Except it stays attached to the conversation and the whole team can see it.
What a team note is
A note is stored in Trupeo, never sent. It has no recipient, it does not go out to your email provider, and the person who wrote to you cannot see it: it never leaves your shared mailbox.
Every member who can see the email can read it. That is the point: a note is meant to be found by whoever opens this email after you.
How to add one
Open the email. Under the last email, the bar offers “Note” when you or another member is on the email. Elsewhere, and on a phone, “Team note” is in the ”⋯” menu (“Other actions”) at the end of the bar. The editor opens straight on the “Team note” tab, with the reminder “Team note: the person who wrote to you never sees it”.
You can also open a reply and switch to the “Team note” tab: “Reply” and “Team note” are the two tabs of the same editor, and each one keeps its content when you switch. If you close the editor with the cross or Esc, the note you started is kept for as long as the email stays open. It is lost if you open another email or close the page.
You can write a note even while a member is replying: only the reply is locked in that case, not the note.
Then:
- Write. The formatting bar offers bold, italic, underline, bulleted list and numbered list.
- Type
@to mention a member. The list of the mailbox’s members appears, narrowing on the name or address as you type; pick with the arrow keys and Enter, or with a click. The person mentioned gets an “Alex mentioned you in a note” notification, on their phone and by email depending on their settings (see Set up your notifications). - Finish with “Add the note”. The Cmd + Enter shortcut (or Ctrl + Enter) does the same.
A note is 5,000 characters at most. Once added, it can be neither edited nor deleted: write it as a record meant to stay.
A note does not look like a reply
That is on purpose, and it shows in three places:
- In the editor. The “Team note” tab has a gray background, carries the reminder “Team note: the person who wrote to you never sees it”, and its button is not “Send” but “Add the note”.
- In the conversation. The note sits on a gray background, with a rule down its left side, and a small page marks it on the vertical line that links the emails. Its first line says “Team note”, then its author’s photo or initials, their name and when. Emails, for their part, have no background. When a note mentions you, your name stands out on a tinted background; other people’s mentions are only in bold.
- In the list. The row of an email that carries notes shows how many, beside a small page, without opening it.
No note ever shows in what the person who wrote to you receives: what they get is the emails you send, and nothing else.
Why this beats a WhatsApp message
In a small team, information travels wherever it is fastest: the WhatsApp group, a text, a word in passing. That works right up to the day the person who knew is on holiday.
A team note fixes exactly that: the context stays stuck to the email. Three weeks later, whoever opens the conversation reads the person’s question, the reply that went out, and the note explaining why. Nobody has to dig an exchange out of another app, or remember who held the information.
It is also what makes a handover work: when you give an email to a member, a note hands them the context along with the email. See Say who’s on an email.
Notes are one of three habits that decide whether a shared mailbox stays readable, along with saying who’s on what and labels. The three together are covered in shared mailbox best practices for small teams.