What is a shared mailbox or role-based email address?
What is a shared mailbox?
An ordinary mailbox belongs to one person: jan@yourbusiness.be. A shared mailbox (also called a role-based email address or role mailbox) belongs to a role: info@yourbusiness.be, accounting@, support@. Several people have access to it, so the mail that comes in can be handled by the whole team.
The address is therefore independent of who happens to be working at the time. If someone leaves or someone joins, info@ simply continues to exist and only who can access it changes. That's exactly what many organisations are looking for when they ask: what's a good way to create an email address for an organisation rather than for a person? A role-based email address is the answer.
Why a shared mailbox matters
For an association, school or small business, a shared mailbox solves a few persistent problems:
- Nothing falls through the cracks. If a question comes into
info@, the whole team sees it. If someone is ill or on holiday, a colleague picks it up, so the customer notices nothing. - The history stays with the organisation. Correspondence isn't locked away in one person's private inbox. If that person leaves, the history doesn't disappear with them.
- You look professional and recognisable.
sales@yourbusiness.beinspires more trust than a private address, and customers immediately know where to go. - Responsibilities are clear. An address per function (
invoices@,jobs@) makes visible where which kind of message belongs.
For association boards that last point is especially valuable: addresses like chairman@ or treasurer@ belong to the function, not the person. How to arrange such a handover neatly is explained in role-based email addresses and handover.
How it works
You can set up a shared mailbox in two ways, depending on how much you want to do with it:
- As an alias (forwarding address). The address
info@is then not a separate mailbox, but forwards incoming mail to one or more existing mailboxes. Simple and quick: ideal when only receiving matters and the volume is low. What an alias precisely is you can read in what is an email alias. - As a real shared mailbox. The address is then its own mailbox that several people log into or get access to. Everyone sees the same messages, folders and sent items. Handy with more volume, when you also want to be able to reply from the shared address and keep an overview of what has already been answered.
Which form suits you depends on your situation. If info@ gets a few mails a week, an alias is enough. If a team handles dozens of questions daily, a real shared mailbox works more pleasantly. You can, incidentally, start small with an alias and switch to a real mailbox later as the volume grows. The choice isn't fixed forever. Setting it up step by step is explained in setting up a shared mailbox.
What to watch out for
A shared mailbox only works well with a few agreements:
- Agree who handles what. Without an agreement, everyone thinks someone else is doing it, or two people reply at the same time. Use folders or labels, for example, to mark what's in progress or dealt with.
- Mind the security with shared access. If everyone shares one password, you lose sight of who did what and changing it is difficult when someone leaves. Personal access to the shared mailbox is neater and safer.
- Choose deliberately between alias and real mailbox. An alias can't send from that address itself and keeps no history of its own. If you want that, take a real shared mailbox.
- Arrange the handover in advance. Especially with associations: set out how access transfers when a function changes person, so no one is ever locked out or retains access they shouldn't.
- Keep it manageable. Too many role addresses makes things messy. Start with the addresses you really use and expand as the need arises.
And with Mailflux
With Mailflux you set up role-based email addresses easily, because every plan includes 20 free aliases. Addresses like info@, sales@ or board@ can therefore be created at no extra cost: ideal for distributing questions neatly without paying for a separate mailbox for each address.
If you want more than forwarding, you create a full mailbox that you share with colleagues. For organisations with many accounts there's bulk account management, so you manage mailboxes and addresses centrally instead of one by one. You work in the webmail (with coloured labels to keep an overview) on any device, hosted in Europe and GDPR-compliant. Read more about the basics in email on your own domain.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between an alias and a shared mailbox?
An alias is a forwarding address: mail for info@ comes into an existing mailbox, but there's no separate inbox. A shared mailbox is its own inbox that several people can access, with its own folders and sent items. An alias is simpler; a shared mailbox offers more overview and the ability to reply from the address.
Can several people work in the same mailbox at once?
Yes. With a real shared mailbox, several colleagues can have access and see the same messages. Do make agreements about who handles what: with folders or labels you mark what's in progress or dealt with, so no one does duplicate work or overlooks a message.
Does a role-based email address cost extra?
Not as an alias: every Mailflux plan includes 20 free aliases, so addresses like info@ or board@ can be created at no extra cost. If you want a real, separate shared mailbox with its own storage, you pay for that as a mailbox. What suits you depends on how much you want to do with it.