Consolidate Multiple Inboxes

If you created 2 or more Help Scout Inboxes, but have decided that consolidating a couple of them (or all of them) into a single Inbox makes more sense for your team's flow, you can use Workflows to move all the conversations over, change the forwarding, then delete the extra Inbox(es). This article will walk you through that process. 

If you are just looking to have multiple addresses forward in to a single Inbox, but don't already have separate Inboxes in Help Scout for those, check out Forward Email Aliases to an Inbox for the information you'll need to set that up. 

Before You Get Started

• These steps use the Workflows feature, available in Standard or higher plans. If you're new to workflows, it's a good idea to head over to Get Started With Workflows first to get familiar. 
• You need the Manage workflows permission to follow this guide. Take a look at User Roles and Permissions if you need more information on those permissions.
• Make sure you also have access to the forwarding settings for the email address at your email provider that is currently set to forward to the Inbox that you want to delete, as you'll need to be able to reset the forwarding to go to the Inbox you're keeping. Take a look at Get Your Email Into Help Scout for more help on accessing the forwarding settings if you don't remember what you did to set it up.

Consolidate Inboxes

1

Move the conversations

Head to Manage > Inboxes and click on the tile for the Inbox that you plan to delete. Choose Workflows from the left navigation menu, then click New Workflow.

Choose Automatic as the Type, and set the condition as Status is not equal to Spam to catch all conversations except for spam.

Add the action Move to inbox and choose the Inbox that you're keeping as your main Inbox. Optional: add the action Add Tag(s) to mark these conversations with tag that will help you distinguish them after the move. (For example, moved-from-sourceinboxname.)

Make sure to toggle Apply to Previous on. 

It should look like the image below:

2

Change the forwarding at your email provider

Hop into your email provider's forwarding settings for the Inbox you want to delete. Change the settings there so that the email will forward to the Help Scout Inbox address for the Inbox that you are keeping. You can find that address at that Inbox's settings — head to Manage > Inboxes and choose the tile for the Inbox that you are keeping. The Inbox Address on that settings page is the address you now want to forward this email to. 

3

Copy over any Workflows and/or Saved Replies you want to keep

Head into the Workflows for the Inbox you are going to delete and use the Copy to Inbox... option to copy the ones you want to also use in the Inbox you're going to keep. 

Do the same for any Saved Replies you want to use in the Inbox you're keeping. 

4

Delete the Inbox you're eliminating

Head back to Manage > Inboxes and click the tile for the Inbox you are NOT keeping, scroll down to the bottom of that page, and click the red Delete Inbox link.

Note: Make sure that the Workflow you started in Step 1 has completed and all conversations are in the new Inbox before you take this step!

5

Add the email address to Aliases

Next, you'll need to add the address for the Inbox you're deleting to the Aliases field of the Inbox you're keeping. This will ensure that Help Scout knows to associate any emails from the deleted Inbox's address with the new Inbox they're being sent to. Take a look at Forward Email Aliases to an Inbox for more information on Aliases in Help Scout.

6

Set up filtering by alias (optional)

You can automatically take actions on new conversations that you receive via the email alias using Workflows. Create a new automatic Workflow and use the To: condition to look for the alias email address.

Note: The To: condition will not match on the conversations moved from the previous Inbox. It will only find conversations sent to the alias after the consolidation. Add a condition looking for the tag you applied when you moved the conversations to include the previous conversations.

For example, if you wanted to automatically tag and assign all conversations that were sent to billing@jgclothing.co alias after consolidation, as well as show those in a folder, you'd set the Conditions to be To: is equal to billing@jgclothing.co, and set the Actions to add the tag, assign to the user, and copy to folder.

The Workflow would look something like this: If you are on the Plus Plan, you can use this Workflow to automatically assign Aliases to Team Folders to take them out of the unassigned queue. More about Teams here: Create and Manage Teams.