A shared mailbox with one person on it is not much use. Inviting the members who answer with you takes a minute, and everyone keeps their own access: nobody passes a password around.
That is the whole point of inviting rather than handing out credentials. What a password in circulation really costs is covered in how to share a team mailbox without sharing the password.
Where to invite
While getting the mailbox started, the fourth step, “Team”, asks “Who reads this mailbox with you?”. Each line takes an address and a role, “Member” or “Owner”; you can also paste several addresses at once. The button says how many invitations go out, for example “Send 2 invitations”. “Nobody else reads this mailbox” skips the step. Emails keep arriving meanwhile.
Afterwards, in the mailbox’s settings, on the “Members” page:
- On a computer: click “Settings”, at the foot of the column on the left. The settings open on “General”; in the column, the “This mailbox” group holds “Members”.
- On a phone: “More”, then “Settings”. The list that opens has a “This mailbox” group, with “Members” in it.
Only an owner can invite and change the mailbox’s settings. A member can read the group’s four pages, “General”, “Sending”, “Members” and “Billing”, without changing anything: each tells them who the owners are, the people to ask for a change.
From an email, once an invitation has gone out but nobody has joined the mailbox yet: the “Assign to…” menu says “No other member for now.” and offers an owner “Invite a member”, which opens the form below straight away. While you are alone in the mailbox with no invitation waiting, emails have no “Assign to…”: there is nobody to hand them to.
At the top of the “Members” page, “Invite” opens the “Invite a member” form in place. Type one or more addresses in “Email addresses”, separated by a comma, then “Send the invitation” (or “Send the 3 invitations”). The form also says which plan will apply once the invitations are accepted. If an address already has a pending invitation, Trupeo tells you instead of sending a second one: resend it from the list.
As soon as the mailbox has a scope, the form also asks what the person will see, in the “Access” part: “Whole mailbox”, chosen by default, or “Only some scopes”, to invite them straight into the scopes you tick. See Scopes: show a member only the mail that concerns them.
What the invited person receives
An email inviting them to join your shared mailbox, with a button that takes them to Trupeo. The email is written in the language of the person who sends it, the one set in their account’s settings, on the “Profile” page: from an account in English the button reads Join the mailbox, from an account in French Rejoindre la boîte mail. Resending the invitation rewrites it in the language of the person who clicks.
The button opens the “Join the team’s mailbox” page, which says who invites them, which mailbox they will read and with which role. They create their own Trupeo account if they do not have one yet, or sign in with “Sign in”. They are then added to the mailbox and land in it.
Three things are worth knowing before you send:
- The address has to match. The invitation is only accepted by an account whose email address is exactly the one you invited. If the person is signed in with another address, Trupeo shows “This invitation is for another address”, with both addresses, “Sign out and continue”, and a button that asks you to invite their own address. Invite the address they will really use.
- The address has to be confirmed. Joining a shared mailbox needs a confirmed address. Someone who creates their account with an email address and a password first gets a six-digit code by email, to enter on “Enter the code we emailed you”. Once the address is confirmed, they join the team.
- The invitation is valid for fourteen days. After that, the invitation’s line in “Who has access” says it expired, and the person who opens the link reads “This invitation has expired”, with “Ask for a new invitation”: you get an email, and can invite them again in one click. “Resend” starts another fourteen days with a new link, “Withdraw” deletes it.
Until the invitation is accepted, its line stays in “Who has access”, with the date it was sent and the date it is valid until. Once accepted, the person shows there with their role.
The two roles
Trupeo has only two roles: Owner and Member. In “Who has access”, on a computer, each person’s role is a button at the end of their line. On a phone, the role is written under the name: tap the person’s line, and a sheet opens at the bottom of the screen with the same choices as the button.
Someone invited from the “Members” page arrives as a Member. While getting started, each line chooses its role. The role can be changed afterwards.
A member works in the mailbox: reads emails, replies, hands emails over, leaves team notes, marks emails done, deletes, files emails under labels and in folders, and can create, rename or delete a label. By default they see every conversation; an owner can limit them to some scopes, so they only see the mail that concerns them (see Scopes).
An owner can do all that, plus run the mailbox:
- invite, resend and withdraw invitations;
- remove a member;
- change roles, and limit a member to some scopes;
- billing: see Trial, subscription, and reduced pricing;
- the “General” page: the mailbox’s connection, its data export, and deleting the mailbox;
- the “Sending” page: the sender name, the shared mailbox’s signature and the Sent with Trupeo line.
To change a role, open the role button (on a phone, tap the line): the menu offers “Member” (“Reads, replies and files.”) and “Owner” (“Also sets up the mailbox, invites and pays.”). A mailbox has to keep at least one owner: while there is only one, “Member” is inactive on their line, with “A mailbox needs at least one owner.”
In practice, have two owners as soon as there are more than two of you: the day one is on holiday, the other can invite a replacement or sort out billing.
Remove someone
Open the person’s role button (on a phone, tap their line), then “Remove from the mailbox”. Their line says “Removing…”, with “Undo”, and a message recalls that they will lose access and that the emails they are on will go back to To assign. For ten seconds or so, “Undo” keeps them; then the removal goes through. To remove an owner, make them a Member first.
The person then loses access to the shared mailbox. Their Trupeo account still exists: it is access to this mailbox that is removed, not the account.
The emails they were on come back to the team. Every email they were on that was not done goes back to “To assign”, and its conversation notes “This email is back in To assign: the person who was on it left the mailbox”. Nobody has to go looking: pick them up from “To assign”, as described in Say who’s on an email. The emails they had already handled keep their name: they say who dealt with them.
Their notifications for this mailbox disappear, and notifications or emails not yet sent are not sent to them. If you invite them again, they get them back.
One last effect, on the bill: the plan follows the number of people with access to the mailbox. Going from three people to two, or the other way, changes the plan automatically, with nothing to do on your side.
Leave a mailbox
A member who no longer has anything to do in a mailbox leaves it themselves, without waiting to be removed. In the mailbox’s settings, on the “General” page, the “You and this mailbox” section offers “Leave the mailbox…”. The window says what will happen: “Leave the mailbox” confirms, “Stay” closes it.
It is the same departure as a removal: the emails they were on go back to “To assign”, their Trupeo account still exists, and coming back takes a new invitation from an owner. Trupeo then takes them to another of their mailboxes, or to getting started if they have none left.
An owner does not see this section. To leave, they first switch to the Member role, which is only possible while another owner remains, then leave the mailbox.
Hand over a paused mailbox
When a mailbox is paused (a trial that ended with no payment method, or a payment that did not go through), the “Members” page says so: inviting, removing someone or changing an access resume with the subscription.
One thing stays possible: handing the mailbox over to a member by making them an owner, for example the person who will take care of the payment. Choose “Owner” in their role menu. The “Hand the mailbox over to Marie?” window says what that person will be able to do, recalls that you stay an owner, and that this cannot be undone while the mailbox is paused. “Hand it over” confirms, “Keep it as it is” closes it.
A member of a paused mailbox does not see the list of people: the page tells them “The list of members comes back when the subscription starts again.” To restart the mailbox, see Trial, subscription, and reduced pricing.