KoltrixGmail Delegation vs Google Groups vs a Shared Inbox
Three ways to share email inside or alongside Google Workspace. How delegation, Groups and shared inbox tools handle ownership, replies and visibility.
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Sooner or later, a team on Google Workspace needs two people to work out of the same address. The founder wants a co-founder to cover support@ during a trip, or sales wants hello@ visible to everyone. Google offers two built-in ways to do this, and there's a whole category of third-party tools for the same job. They solve different problems, and picking the wrong one usually shows up as two people replying to the same customer.
Everything below reflects how these options work at the time of writing. Google updates Workspace regularly, so check its admin documentation for current details and limits.
Option 1: Gmail delegation
Mail delegation lets one Gmail user grant another user access to their mailbox. The delegate opens the delegated account from their own Gmail, and can read, reply to and organize messages on the owner's behalf. Replies sent by a delegate can show the delegate's name alongside the owner's address, so recipients can see who actually wrote.
Where it works well:
- An executive and an assistant sharing one person's inbox
- Temporary coverage while someone is on leave
- A dedicated
support@account, set up as its own user, delegated to a couple of people
Where it strains:
- No sense of ownership per conversation. Delegation gives access, not assignment. Two delegates can open the same message, both start replying, and nothing in the basic interface tells either of them.
- Status lives in read and unread. If one delegate opens a message, it's marked read for everyone, even if nobody has dealt with it.
- A licensed user per shared address. A dedicated
support@account usually means paying for another user, and someone has to manage its password and security settings.
Option 2: Google Groups as a collaborative inbox
Google Groups can act as a shared address: mail sent to the group goes to its members, and the group's web interface keeps the conversation history. Groups also offers collaborative inbox features, which let members assign conversations to each other and mark them with states such as resolved or no action needed.
Where it works well:
- Distribution addresses like
team@orbilling@where several people need a copy - Light support workloads where assigning a conversation is enough structure
- Teams that want to stay entirely inside Google at no extra cost per address
Where it strains:
- Two places to work. Members often see group mail in their own Gmail inbox, but assignment and status live in the Groups interface. Teams frequently end up replying from Gmail and never updating the status in Groups.
- Replies can scatter. Depending on how the group is configured, a member's reply may go from their personal address instead of the group address, which splits the conversation and teaches customers to email individuals.
- Configuration is subtle. Posting permissions, who can see the archive, and how replies are addressed all need careful setup. A misconfigured group can bounce external mail or expose its archive more widely than intended.
Option 3: A dedicated shared inbox tool
Shared inbox products, such as Front or Help Scout, or a team inbox like Koltrix, treat a shared address as a first-class object. Instead of one person's mailbox or a mailing list, the address belongs to the team, and every member works on the same conversations in the same interface.
Features vary by product, but the category typically focuses on clear visibility of who is handling what, history that stays with the company, and access granted per person without shared passwords.
Where it works well:
- Customer-facing addresses where a dropped or duplicated reply has a real cost
- Teams with several shared addresses (support, sales, billing)
- Companies that want customer history to outlive any one employee's account
Where it strains:
- Another tool and another bill. It's a separate product with its own pricing and login.
- Migration and DNS work. Some tools sit on top of your existing Google mailboxes. Others, like Koltrix, host the mail themselves, which means changing MX records for the domain or a subdomain.
- Overkill for tiny volumes. If
support@gets three messages a week, delegation is probably enough.
Side by side
| Gmail delegation | Google Groups | Shared inbox tool | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extra cost per shared address | Often a licensed user | Usually none | Depends on the product |
| Assign a conversation to a person | No | Yes, in the Groups interface | Typically yes |
| See who else is replying | No | Limited | Varies by product |
| Replies come from the shared address | Yes, with delegate name shown | Depends on configuration | Yes |
| History stays with the company | Yes, in the delegated account | Yes, in the group archive | Yes |
| Setup effort | Low | Medium | Medium to high |
How to choose
A few honest rules of thumb:
- One or two people, low volume, already on Workspace: use delegation, or a group if several people need copies. Google's built-in options are fine here, and adding a tool would be premature.
- Several shared addresses, customer-facing, and duplicate replies have already happened: look at a shared inbox tool. The cost of one mishandled customer usually exceeds a modest subscription.
- A full support operation with chat, SLAs and reporting: you probably want a help desk rather than any of these three.
If you're weighing a move off Workspace entirely, our Koltrix vs Google Workspace comparison is direct about where Workspace is the better choice, starting with the fact that it includes Calendar, Drive and Meet and we don't.
Bottom line
Delegation shares a mailbox, Groups shares an address, and a shared inbox tool shares the work. If two people answering the same customer is a theoretical problem, stay with what Google gives you. Once it has happened more than once, it's a sign the address has outgrown a mailbox and needs a tool built for teams.
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