Inbox

This page documents the managed-cloud Inbox screen for humans and for authorized clients that drive the UI.

What is the Inbox, and where is its link?

The Inbox is unified messaging on Customermates Cloud: email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram conversations (threads) in one list, the most recent activity first. Click a conversation in the list to read it next to the list; on narrow screens the list and the conversation take turns. From a conversation you reply on its original channel, set its state, move an email to another folder, share the conversation with your team and link its participants to contacts. The channels themselves are connected under My Profile › Channels, see App guide, Profile.

Link: the link to the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; the thread list, reply box, state select, folder menu, thread settings, search, filters, Refresh and Channels are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

Who can use the Inbox, and why is it locked on Starter or missing in the self-hosted version?

All four conditions must hold; when one is missing, for example on Starter, the Inbox is locked or hidden:

• Customermates Cloud. Self-hosted installations have no Inbox: the sidebar entry is hidden and /inbox redirects to the Dashboard.
• A plan with messaging: Pro, Business, Enterprise or a trial. On Starter the page stays in the sidebar but is locked under Upgrade to unlock messaging, and Upgrade your plan opens My Company › Subscription.
• A usable subscription: status Active or a trial that has not ended. While the status is Past Due or Cancelled, the page is locked the same way, with the text "Connecting channels requires an active subscription or a trial that hasn't expired."
• Your role: the Inbox messages row set to Read access All. With None the sidebar entry is hidden and opening /inbox brings you back to the Dashboard. The Admin role always has access.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox, and the Subscription page for Upgrade your plan, /company/subscription. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox, or nav-company-subscription and then company-subscription-plan-picker for the plan cards (shown until the first checkout) or company-subscription-manage for Manage with Lemon Squeezy (to change a running plan), both only for roles with Manage on Company; Upgrade your plan has no id, so Mate names it.

Do I need a connected channel?

Not to open the Inbox: without a channel of your own you still see what teammates share. You need one to send and receive on your own accounts. When the list is empty it reads Nothing here yet and "No messages yet. Connect a channel in your profile to start receiving messages." Below that, members with Manage on Inbox messages get a Channels button that opens My Profile › Channels; when Mate is available, assistant starter prompts appear there instead. On My Profile › Channels, Connect channel adds an email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram or Telegram account with the same permission, see How do I connect a channel?. Channels per member: Pro 1, Business 3, Enterprise unlimited; a trial counts as Pro.

Link: the Channels page, /profile/connected-accounts. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-profile-connected-accounts, then highlight_element with profile-connected-accounts-connect (Connect channel); the Channels button in the empty Inbox has no id, so Mate names it.

Which conversations do I see, and can an admin read my private ones?

The list combines three sources: the channels you connected yourself, channels a teammate shared with the whole workspace, and single conversations a teammate shared from a private channel. A teammate's private conversations never appear, whatever your role, Admin included.

For email accounts, only messages in the folders switched on in the account's Folders tab under My Profile › Channels appear. By default every folder is on except trash, junk or spam, drafts and the all-mail folder; if mail from another folder, for example an archive, is missing, check that its switch is on. A conversation without any message appears only while it holds a saved draft.

Link: the Channels page, /profile/connected-accounts, for the folders; the Inbox is /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-profile-connected-accounts or nav-inbox; once the user has opened the account from its card, connected-account-tab-folders highlights the Folders tab (accounts with folders only); the folder switches are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

Which permissions does the Inbox need?

Roles are edited under My Company › Roles. The Inbox uses the Inbox messages row, which offers Read access None or All (there is no Assigned) and Manage Yes or No.

Without Manage on Inbox messages the reply box and folder move action are hidden, the state shows as a read-only chip, and opening an unread conversation leaves it Unread. Each email still shows its folder or label names below its recipient fields. Sharing a single conversation also requires that you own its channel.

Link: My Company › Roles, /company/roles; the Inbox is /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-company-roles or nav-inbox; the role rows are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

How do I search, filter or refresh the Inbox?

The top bar above the list holds these controls:

• Search... finds conversations by subject, message text, conversation name, and participant names or addresses.
• Filters (funnel icon) offers State, Contact (named after your term for contacts; conversations with that linked contact), Participants (not fully linked finds conversations with someone not linked to a contact yet), Provider (the channel) and Draft (has some finds conversations with a saved draft). It also offers Channel, Email folder, Last message (Sent or Received), Last message date and Last activity.
• Refresh pulls new messages from your channels and the workspace's shared channels right away (Inbox refreshed.); when a provider pushes back it says "Some channels hit their rate limit. Try again in a few minutes." When one of your channels needs reconnecting, or a channel couldn't be refreshed, it says so with the number of channels instead of confirming. It appears only with Manage on Inbox messages.
• Channels opens My Profile › Channels, with a number when channels need attention. It appears only with Manage on Inbox messages.

Folder choices are grouped under the email account. Each group contains only accessible folders, and selected filters retain the account name so identically named folders stay separate. in finds conversations with a visible message in any selected folder; not in excludes those placements. A conversation can match several folders. Last message uses the latest visible sent or received message: later drafts, deleted messages and system events do not change it; draft-only conversations match neither direction. Last message date uses that same actual message, with the usual date comparisons and ranges. For three to seven days ago, add two Last message date conditions: Older than… with 3 days, then 7 days. Conditions combine automatically and the day window updates over time. Last activity includes saved drafts and supports the same date filters. All filters respect account sharing and the folders enabled in the account settings.

The views rail offers All and your personal saved views. The list shows 25 conversations per page; the pagination switches between 5, 10, 25 and 100. The sidebar entry Inbox shows how many of the conversations you can see are Unread.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; Search..., Filters, Refresh, Channels and the views rail are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

How do I open a specific conversation?

Click a row in the list; the address becomes /inbox?threadId=<id>, which you can bookmark or send to a teammate who can see the conversation. An id you cannot open brings you back to /inbox. On a contact, the Channels block has a Go to inbox icon that opens /inbox?filters=participantContactId:in:<contactId>: every conversation with that contact.

With Manage on Inbox messages, scrolling to the top of a conversation fetches older messages from the provider, once per conversation until you reload the page; without it nothing more loads. Resync thread in the header fetches the conversation again and needs the same permission.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox; one conversation is /inbox?threadId=<id>. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox, which opens the Inbox but not a single conversation, so Mate opens the Inbox and names the conversation; the rows and Go to inbox are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

What is in the conversation header?

Next to the conversation's name, left to right:

On narrow screens the chips show icons only.

Emails keep their rounded message bubbles, with incoming messages on the left and outgoing messages on the right. The compact header shows the sender, time and first recipient. Details shows From, To, Cc and Bcc in that order, omitting empty fields and showing each field once. Email actions also opens these details. Bcc is visible only on outgoing mail to the account owner and teammates with access to the whole account. Sharing an individual conversation does not reveal its Bcc addresses or count. Received mail never reveals the sender's hidden recipient list. Click any sender or recipient address to copy it. Copy icons appear on hover or keyboard focus.

A quiet folder button below the recipient summary shows that email's location. With several labels it shows one name and a count; clicking reveals all names and permitted move options. A conversation can contain Inbox, Sent and Archive emails together. If a folder name is unavailable, it reads Unnamed; pending messages without folder information show no location. Load remote images appears beside the folder control when images are blocked. Received HTML uses one canvas across the bubble, without an extra inset card or another layer of padding. It retains its sender-authored layout and colors in both app themes. Remote images load only when you choose Load remote images. Draft Edit and discard controls sit below the body on the left, with Send draft on the right.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; none of the header controls is a highlight target, so Mate names them.

What do the thread states mean?

Opening an unread conversation sets it to Open, but only for members with Manage on Inbox messages. The state is one value shared by everyone who sees the conversation, not per person. A newly received message sets the conversation back to Unread, even when it was Closed or Spam. Spam is only a label: it does not hide the conversation, block the sender or report anything to the provider; use the State filter to keep it out of view. Setting a state never sends anything to the other side. With Manage, change it with the state select (#inbox-thread-state), or ask Mate, which uses update_messaging_thread.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; the state select is not a highlight target, so Mate names it.

How do I move an email to another folder?

In IMAP and Outlook conversations, click an email's folder button and choose a destination under Move this email to… to move only that email. To file the whole conversation, use Move conversation to folder… in the toolbar above it (#inbox-thread-folder). Eligible messages move in the real mailbox too, including older emails when the newest is already in the destination. Sent and Drafts are never targets, and messages in them stay where they are. Gmail conversations, members without Manage on Inbox messages and teammates who only see a shared conversation can open the location menu to read its folder or label names, but have no move options. A conversation a teammate shared from a private channel has no move options, and move_email_thread fails for it, so only the channel's owner can file it.

The move button shows progress while you can continue navigating. The email folder buttons update to the actual placements after the result. Messages moved into a folder switched off on the account's Folders tab disappear from the transcript; other visible emails, including Sent mail, keep the conversation available. When no visible messages remain, the confirmation is "Moved to {folder}. It no longer appears in your inbox." If the provider rate-limits partway, a toast reports "Stopped filing into {folder} because the provider is rate limiting." and the rest can be moved later. Mate uses move_email_thread for the same move.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; the folder menu is not a highlight target, so Mate names it.

How do I share a single conversation?

To share a single conversation with your team, click the chip Private Thread or Shared Thread in the header to open Thread settings. Under Visibility Settings, the switch (#thread-shared) shares just this conversation with everyone whose role can read the Inbox; Shared to CRM confirms it, and switching off shows Conversation is now private. Only the owner of the channel can use the switch, on a plan with messaging (Pro, Business, Enterprise or a trial) and with Manage on Inbox messages. Teammates can read the conversation, change its state and use Resync thread, but they cannot move it to another folder (the move action does not appear for them), and replies go out from the channel, so only you can answer while the channel itself is private.

To share every conversation of a channel, share the channel: Visibility on its Details tab under My Profile › Channels, on Business or Enterprise. The per-conversation switch then stays on and locked, with the note "This account is shared with your team, so all its conversations are visible".

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox, and the Channels page, /profile/connected-accounts. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox or nav-profile-connected-accounts; the chip and the per-conversation switch are not highlight targets, so Mate names them; once the owner has opened the channel on Channels, connected-account-visibility highlights its Visibility switch.

How do I link a conversation or email thread to a contact?

A conversation, an email thread included, links to a contact through its participants. Open Thread settings from the header chip; People lists everyone in the conversation. Click an address or handle to copy it; the standard notification confirms the copy. For an unlinked participant, click Link, then search your contacts or choose Create "…" with the typed name to add a new contact. Linking adds that email address or handle to the contact's channels, so every conversation with it, not only this one, appears on that contact's timeline. A linked participant offers Open contact and Unlink contact; unlinking removes the address from the contact again. Participants stay visible in the conversation either way. Linking and unlinking need Manage on Contacts.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; Thread settings, Link and Unlink contact are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

How do I reply to a conversation?

Click the row under the conversation, Write a reply... for email or Type a message... for chats (#inbox-reply-expand), to open the composer. Email replies show Subject and To, filled from the conversation, and Cc/Bcc adds those fields; you write email in a Markdown editor, and your signature, if switched on, is added when sending. You can send email with any combination of To, Cc and Bcc, including Bcc only; at least one valid recipient is required. Editing a draft restores its Cc and Bcc fields and preserves an empty To field. A saved new message keeps its To recipients: change Cc or Bcc, or discard the draft and start a new message to address someone else. Bcc recipients remain separate and are never added automatically to a reply. Chat replies are plain text in #inbox-reply-input. The composer also has Attach files and Insert emoji. Send with Send (#inbox-reply-send) or Cmd/Ctrl+Enter; More send options next to it holds Save as draft. If sending fails, Retry appears only when trying again can help, such as a rate limit or a temporary outage. When the provider rejects the message, change it before sending again; after a timeout or a dropped connection, check the conversation first, because the message may already have gone out. A channel that needs reconnecting is reported before anything is sent, and only its owner can reconnect it under Channels.

Replying needs Manage on Inbox messages; without it the composer is hidden. The reply goes out from the conversation's own channel, so you can answer only on channels you own or that are shared with the workspace.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; the composer and its buttons are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

How do I start a new conversation or write a new email to a contact?

The Inbox has no button for a new conversation. Start one from a contact: in the contact's Channels block, the New message icon next to an email address or handle opens a compose box for that channel. When several of your channels can send, pick one under From; for LinkedIn with Sales Navigator or Recruiter, Send as chooses Classic, Sales Navigator InMail or Recruiter InMail. After Send you see "Message sent. The conversation will appear shortly." The icon needs Customermates Cloud and Manage on Inbox messages. Over MCP, send_email, send_chat_message and save_message_draft start conversations too.

Link: a contact's page, /contacts/<id>. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-contacts for the contact list; the New message icon is not a highlight target, so Mate names it.

How do drafts and attachments work?

Save as draft under More send options keeps a message without sending it; while you edit a saved draft the entry reads Update draft. A reply draft sits in its conversation with Send draft, Edit and Discard. A draft for a new conversation confirms "Draft saved. Find it in the inbox." and appears in the list as its own conversation; the Draft filter with has some lists every conversation holding a draft. There is one draft per conversation, and saving again updates it. A new LinkedIn InMail cannot be saved as a draft. Discarding cannot be undone. UI, REST (POST /v1/messaging/drafts) and MCP (save_message_draft) share the same drafts; API clients pass the saved message ID and its current draftRevision to send or discard one.

Attach files adds up to 20 files per message, 15 MB together. Drafts cannot keep attachments: "Remove attachments before saving this draft." In received messages, supported media opens inline, other files download, unsupported items show Unsupported, and LinkedIn-post attachments open at their external source.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; the composer, the draft buttons and the Draft filter are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

How do I set an email signature?

The signature belongs to each email account you own, not to the Inbox: open My Profile › Channels, select the Gmail, Outlook or IMAP account and use its Email tab. There you set font, size, link colour and link style, switch on Add a signature, choose a layout with or without a logo and write the text in Markdown. While it is on, the signature is added below every email sent from that account, from the Inbox, the REST API or MCP, so do not paste it into the message; the composer previews it under your text. Every field is listed under Email appearance and signature.

Link: the Channels page, /profile/connected-accounts. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-profile-connected-accounts; once the user has opened the account from its card, connected-account-tab-email highlights the Email tab, and on that open tab connected-account-signature highlights Add a signature and connected-account-email-save highlights Save email settings. The appearance and layout fields are not highlight targets, so Mate names them.

Which ids does the Inbox have?

Mate navigates to and highlights #nav-inbox. The other ids are DOM ids for external browser clients; Mate triages threads with the update_messaging_thread and move_email_thread tools instead of pressing these controls.

Link: the Inbox page, /inbox. Mate: navigate and highlight_element with nav-inbox; the other ids in this table are not highlight targets, so Mate names the controls.

Tips for agents

• External browser clients locate controls via the stable ids above, for example with the CSS selector #inbox-reply-send. The hosted assistant navigates to and highlights nav-inbox only.
• Rows never carry ids. Open records via their page URL /{type}/{id} and a conversation via /inbox?threadId={id}. In the Inbox, thread rows are buttons inside #inbox-thread-list.
• Prefer MCP tools over clicking when a tool exists: get_messaging_threads reads, update_messaging_thread sets the state, move_email_thread files an email, and save_message_draft prepares a message for review.
• Starting a fresh conversation (new email, new chat) is available through the MCP tools send_email and send_chat_message. Prefer those over the UI. In the app, the New message icon on a contact's channel opens a compose box for a quick message.

Related

• App guide, Profile: connect the email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Telegram accounts that feed the Inbox.
• Rate limits: the per-provider budgets that govern reads and sends.