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Forward a Shared Inbox from Any Email Provider

Grovana receives shared inbox mail by having your provider send a copy of every incoming message to a private address that Grovana generates for you. Once that is in place, the inbox appears in your workspace.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace each have their own guide:

This page covers every other provider.

Part 1: Create the channel in Grovana

  1. Go to Settings → Communication.

  2. Click Add email channel.

  3. In Source Email Address, type the shared address you want to receive mail at, for example [email protected].

  4. In Display Name, type the name recipients see.

  5. Click Save.

  6. Grovana now shows a Forwarding address. It ends in @<your-inbound-domain>. Click Copy.

Note

Each channel gets its own forwarding address. Never point two mailboxes at the same one, or their mail will land in the same place.

Part 2: Choose the right kind of forwarding

Most providers offer more than one way to pass mail on, and only one of them works here.

Grovana reads the From header of each message it receives to determine who wrote it. That is how a message is linked to the right person and company.

  • Automatic forwarding on the mail server leaves the original sender in place. Your customer remains the sender, the message is linked to their record, and replies go back to them. Some providers call this Redirect, others call it Forwarding. This is the option to use.
  • Forwarding as an attachment, or any rule that composes a new message, replaces the sender with your own address. Every conversation then appears to come from you, and no message is matched to a contact.

Use the automatic forwarding setting in your mail account or on your mail server. Do not use a rule that resends the message as a new email.

Warning

Also avoid rules that strip attachments or convert messages to plain text. Grovana stores each message exactly as it arrives.

Where the option exists, choose the one that keeps a copy in the original mailbox, so your team can continue to use the inbox as before.

Part 3: Find your provider

Follow your provider's instructions, using the forwarding address you copied in Part 1 as the destination.

Provider Their guide
Amazon SES Forward incoming email to an external destination
Amazon WorkMail Email rules
Bluehost Create account and domain forwarders
cPanel Forwarders
DreamHost Add a forward-only email address
Exchange (self-hosted) Configure email forwarding for a mailbox
GoDaddy Forward incoming email to another address
iCloud Mail Forward email on iCloud.com
Namecheap Set up free email forwarding
OVHcloud Email redirection
Rackspace Set up Rackspace email forwarding
Zoho Mail Email forwarding

If your provider is not listed, you can still connect it. In almost every mail product the setting appears under a name such as Forwarding, Redirect, Forwarders, Aliases, Rules or Filters, in either the mailbox settings or the domain settings.

Part 4: Test it

Send an email from an outside address (a personal Gmail works) to [email protected]. It should appear in Grovana within a minute or two.

Troubleshooting

Nothing arrives

Compare the forwarding address character for character with the one in Grovana. A single wrong character means the mail goes nowhere and is silently dropped.

Mail arrives, but every message shows your own address as the sender

The rule is rebuilding the message rather than passing it along, so your address ends up in the From header. Switch to your provider's plain forwarding or redirect setting, and turn off any option that forwards as an attachment.

The sender receives a bounce about forwarding not being allowed

Your provider blocks automatic forwarding to outside domains. Look for a security or anti-spam setting that allows external forwarding, and enable it for this mailbox only.

Mail no longer appears in the original inbox

The rule moves messages on rather than copying them. Change it to keep a copy, or add a second rule that delivers to the inbox.

The channel receives mail but cannot send

Receiving and sending are separate. Sending requires your domain to be verified under the channel's Sending domain section, which means adding the DNS records Grovana lists there.