Consolidate Multiple Mailboxes

If you created 2 or more Help Scout mailboxes, but have decided that consolidating a couple of them (or all of them) into a single mailbox 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 mailbox(es). This article will walk you through that process. 

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

Note: If you want to consolidate more than 2 mailboxes, your best bet is to take it one at a time. Step through this process to move one mailbox and wait for that to complete, then step through it again for the next mailbox. 

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 mailbox that you want to delete, as you'll need to be able to reset the forwarding to go to the mailbox 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 Mailboxes

1

Move the conversations

Head to Manage > Mailboxes and click on the tile for the mailbox 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 mailbox and choose the mailbox that you're keeping as your main mailbox. 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-sourcemailboxname.)

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 mailbox you want to delete. Change the settings there so that the email will forward to the Help Scout mailbox address for the mailbox that you are keeping. You can find that address at that mailbox's settings — head to Manage > Mailboxes and choose the tile for the mailbox that you are keeping. The Mailbox 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 mailbox you are going to delete and use the Copy to Mailbox... option to copy the ones you want to also use in the mailbox you're going to keep. 

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

4

Delete the mailbox you're eliminating

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

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

5

Add the email address to Aliases

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

6

Set up filtering by alias (optional)

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

For example, if you wanted to automatically tag and assign all conversations that were sent to billing@jgclothing.co alias, 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.