A Gmail team shares one inbox through a Google Group. On Google Workspace, you make a group for the address, such as office@yourfirm.com, and turn on Collaborative Inbox. Each of you gets the mail in your own Gmail. You reply as the group from your own account. Google Groups holds the shared part: who has each conversation, and whether it’s done. On personal Gmail there’s no group inbox, so delegation is the one way in. A Gmail extension such as Drag, Hiver or Gmelius is worth adding once two of you keep answering the same message. We checked every Google detail below against Google’s own documentation on October 4, 2026.
How a Gmail team can share one inbox
Google gives a Gmail team four ways to share mail. They do different jobs.
| Option | What it’s for | What each person sees | Who the reply comes from | Needs Workspace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collaborative Inbox | One address any of you might answer | Their own copy in Gmail, plus a shared list in Google Groups | The group, once each person adds it to Send mail as | Yes |
| Plain Google Group | One address that reaches everyone | Their own copy in Gmail | The group, the same way | Yes |
| Delegation | Getting into one person’s mailbox | That person’s whole inbox | The account, with the delegate’s address shown | No |
| Group alias | A second address into the same group | The same as the group | Whichever address you choose | Yes |
For two or three people answering one address, the Collaborative Inbox is the one to build. It adds a named owner and a finished mark to each conversation in a Google Group. It comes with your Workspace plan. A plain group gets the mail to everyone but can’t say who has it. Delegation is for one person’s own mailbox. An alias is just another way in.
Sharing the password to one Gmail account isn’t on the list. Nobody can tell who sent what. One careless sign-in puts the whole account at risk.
If you’re still deciding between Gmail and Microsoft 365 for the address itself, team email when the team is two or three people compares all four kinds across both.
Setting up a Collaborative Inbox for your Gmail team
It takes a Google Workspace admin for one setting and a group owner for the rest. In a firm of two, that’s usually the same person. These are the settings that make it work, in the order they’re done, from Google’s pages on making a group a Collaborative Inbox and group settings.
- Outside mail is allowed, organization-wide. Clients are outside your organization. The Admin console’s Groups setting that lets owners accept email from external users is off by default (Google). Until an admin turns it on, client mail to the group doesn’t arrive.
- The group exists, with everyone in it. The group is made at groups.google.com under the address you want, with each person who’ll work it as a member.
- Conversation history is on. Google is plain about this one: “To enable Collaborative Inbox features, you must turn on conversation history.”
- Collaborative Inbox is selected. It sits in the group’s settings under Enable additional Google Groups features.
- Clients can post. The group’s Who can post setting includes people outside your organization.
- Everyone holds both moderation permissions. “Who can moderate metadata” covers take, assign, drop and complete. “Who can moderate content” covers marking a duplicate or “no action needed”. For two or three people, all members get both.
- Each person’s subscription is Each email. Groups offers Each email, Digest, Abridged and None. Each email puts every message in each person’s Gmail as it arrives.
- The group address is under Send mail as in each person’s Gmail. Gmail confirms it by sending a code to the group. Google notes you “might need to adjust some of your group settings” to see it. Its steps open Who can post to Anyone on the web while the code comes through (Google).
Sending as the group needs the Owner or Manager role, per Google’s page on it. A manager can do nearly everything an owner can. The exceptions are deleting the group, promoting someone to owner, and changing an owner’s settings. So in a firm of two, the second person is usually a manager.
What a shared Gmail inbox looks like day to day
A Collaborative Inbox lives in two places, and it helps to know which does what.
Gmail is where you read and reply. Each of you gets your own copy of every message. That means your labels, stars and archive are yours alone. If you archive a client’s question, it’s still sitting in your colleague’s inbox.
Google Groups is where you share the work. Take, Assign, Drop and Mark as complete all happen at groups.google.com. Google’s help page is clear that these are Collaborative Inbox features in Groups, not in Gmail. The search there has an “Assigned to me” filter, which is the list each of you works from. Marking a conversation as a duplicate locks it. Marking it “no action needed” keeps whatever assignment it already had (Google).
Three small habits close the gap between the two:
- Take it in Groups before you draft in Gmail. Then the other person can see it’s yours.
- Reply from the group address and copy the group. Pick the group in the From field. Put the group in Bcc so your reply joins the conversation, and your colleague sees it went.
- Mark it complete when it’s done. Otherwise the shared list says it’s still open.
Groups also lets an owner choose where replies to group posts go. The options include all members, the original author only, or a custom address. For a client-facing address, check that a client’s reply comes back to the group.
Who owns each thread, how often to sweep the list, and how to stop a double reply are habits more than settings. How a team manages a shared email inbox sets those out, and a shared mailbox process that holds covers access, audits and people joining or leaving.
Gmail delegation, and where it stops
Delegation lets one person into another person’s mailbox. A delegate can “read, send, and delete emails in your account for you” (Google). When they send, their own address appears on the message. It suits an owner and an assistant, or cover while somebody’s away.
Google’s page sets the limits:
- How many. Up to 10 delegates on personal Gmail. Up to 1,000 on a work account, with 40 able to use it at once.
- Who. A work account can only add delegates from inside its own organization.
- Admin first. On Workspace, an admin has to turn delegation on.
- Timing. “It can take up to 24 hours before a delegate can use your account.” The invitation expires after a week.
- What they can’t do. Chat and password changes are off-limits to a delegate. So are Google Account settings, Drive attachments and Gemini in Gmail.
- On a phone. Delegates can use the Gmail apps, but they can’t add attachments or photos from there.
The address still belongs to one person, and there’s no assignment or status. So delegation works as a door into a colleague’s mailbox. For an address the two of you answer together, the Collaborative Inbox is the better fit.
On personal Gmail, delegation is the whole toolkit. If your firm runs on a free @gmail.com address and two of you answer it, delegation does the job. Moving to Workspace on your own domain is what opens up groups and the Collaborative Inbox.
Group aliases for a second address
A group can answer to more than one address. An admin adds aliases in the Admin console under Directory, then Groups, then the group’s Aliases. Google’s example is a support@ group that also takes mail at help@. Messages to either address land in the same group. Google allows “up to 30 email aliases for each group”, and changes can take up to 24 hours (Google).
That’s useful when a firm has gathered addresses over the years. info@, office@ and hello@ can all feed one Collaborative Inbox, so nobody has three lists to check. Aliases on a person’s own account are a separate thing, covered in team email when the team is two or three people.
Where a Gmail shared inbox falls short
A Collaborative Inbox handles a lot for two people. These are the gaps you’ll notice first:
- The shared list lives outside Gmail. Claiming and completing mean a trip to Google Groups. On a busy day, people skip it.
- No warning of a second reply. Nothing tells you your colleague is already typing. Two answers can go out.
- No private notes on a thread. A quick “I called her, she’s sending it Friday” has nowhere to sit but a separate message.
- No “waiting on them” status. Open, assigned and complete are what you get. A label in your own Gmail fills in, but your colleague can’t see it.
- No reply-time tracking. Nothing measures how long a message waited.
- Delegates lose Gemini. Anyone working through delegation can’t use Gemini in Gmail on that account.
If those are rare annoyances, habits cover them. When they’re weekly, an extension earns its price. The wider list of a plain shared mailbox’s weak spots, on Gmail and Outlook alike, is in choosing shared inbox software.
When to add Drag, Hiver or Gmelius
These three run inside the Gmail you already use. They add assignment, notes and a collision warning on top of the screen you know. We took the prices from each vendor’s pricing page on October 4, 2026.
| Tool | From, billed yearly | Billed monthly | Seat minimum | Collision warning | Reply-time (SLA) rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drag | $12 a user a month (Starter) | $16 | None | Every plan | Pro only, $24 |
| Hiver | $25 a user a month (Growth) | $35 | 2 seats | Every plan | Pro and up, $55 |
| Gmelius | $25 a user a month (Growth) | $33 | None stated | Growth and up | Growth and up |
Two details matter for a small firm. Gmelius’s lowest plan, Meli at $19, has no shared inbox, so Growth is the real starting price. Hiver bills at least two seats, which suits a firm of two. All three offer a 7-day trial.
An extension is worth a look when one of these is true:
- Two replies to the same client have gone out more than once.
- Somebody keeps skipping the trip to Google Groups, so the shared list is out of date.
- You’ve promised clients a response time in writing and need to show you keep it.
- You want notes on a thread that the client never sees.
If your firm uses Outlook as well as Gmail, these Gmail-only tools stop fitting. Choosing shared inbox software compares the separate apps that cover both. And if you’re wondering whether you need a tool at all, alternatives to a shared inbox tool makes that case.
If you were looking for Google Workspace support
Plenty of people searching “gmail team” or “google team email” want a person at Google. Here’s who can reach one.
- A Workspace admin can contact Google directly. Google says, “Contacting support requires having the Support administrator privilege.” From the Admin console, the help icon at the top right opens chat or email. Google aims for an initial response within one business day (Google).
- A Workspace user without admin rights goes through their admin. In a small firm, that’s usually the owner.
- Essentials Starter users have to move to Enterprise Essentials to get support, per the same page.
- Personal Gmail has no direct support line on that page. In Google’s own help communities, people report the same struggle, such as “I’ve spent months trying to find a way to contact gmail Support” (Google Accounts Community). The Gmail Help Center and its community forum are the routes that remain.
Point beside a shared Gmail address
Point works on each person’s own Gmail. It connects the account you already have, and each of you is a seat. A shared address stays a Google Group. When the firm needs one address worked by two people, build the Collaborative Inbox above. It’s already in your plan.
What Point changes is each person’s own morning. Your mail is sorted into Now, Later and Other as real Gmail labels, so the sorting is still there when you open Gmail itself. A thread carries a short summary before you open it. When a reply is due, Point writes one that sounds like you. Out of the box it sits in your drafts until you press send. You can change that per kind of action later. See how it works.
For a second person on Point, per-seat billing explains the count, and what a second seat can see covers the access.
Common questions
Can two people share one Gmail inbox?
Yes. On Google Workspace, make a Google Group for the address and turn on Collaborative Inbox. Each of you gets the mail in your own Gmail and can reply as the group. On personal Gmail, one person adds the other as a delegate, which allows up to 10 people into the account.
Is a Collaborative Inbox free?
It’s included in Google Workspace, so there’s nothing extra to pay. It isn’t available on a personal @gmail.com account. An admin may need to turn on Groups for Business first.
Can I assign an email to my colleague from inside Gmail?
Not with Google’s own tools. Take, Assign and Mark as complete happen in Google Groups, at groups.google.com. Extensions such as Drag, Hiver and Gmelius put assignment inside Gmail.
Why aren’t client emails reaching our Google Group?
The usual cause is outside mail being blocked. A Workspace admin has to let group owners allow email from external users, which is off by default. Then the group’s Who can post setting has to let people outside the organization write in.
What’s the difference between a Gmail delegate and a Google Group?
A delegate works inside one person’s mailbox, and the address stays that person’s. A Google Group has its own address, and every member gets the mail. For an address two of you answer together, use a group. For getting into a colleague’s mailbox, use delegation.
How do I contact Google Workspace support?
An admin with the Support administrator privilege signs in to the Admin console, clicks the help icon, and chooses chat or email. Users without admin rights ask their admin. Personal Gmail accounts rely on the Gmail Help Center and community forum.