Setup guide
How to share support@ with your team in Outlook
How a Microsoft 365 shared mailbox works, what it costs, where it stops being enough for a support team, and what to do instead.
Start here
What most teams try first: a shared mailbox
Microsoft 365 gives you a shared mailbox at no extra licence cost, and it is genuinely the right first step. The trouble starts when the team grows past two or three people: the mailbox shows what has arrived, but nothing shows who is on it, so the same customer gets two answers or none.
The built-in way
What Outlook can do on its own, at no extra cost.
- 01
In the Microsoft 365 admin centre, go to Teams & groups, then Shared mailboxes.
- 02
Add a shared mailbox and give it the address support@yourcompany.com.
- 03
Under Members, add everyone who should read and reply.
- 04
In Outlook, the mailbox appears in the folder list automatically within about an hour.
For a team of two or three this is often enough, and it costs nothing beyond the licences you already pay for. Do this first.
Where it stops
The mailbox can show what arrived. It cannot show who is on it.
- No ownership: the mailbox cannot say who has taken a conversation
- No status beyond read and unread, which the next person's click overwrites
- Some teams work around it with colour categories, which nobody keeps up for long
- Shared mailboxes have a storage cap, and need a licence once they grow past it
That is the whole problem a shared inbox tool exists to solve: ownership and status, visible to everyone, without anyone having to keep a convention alive. SharedReply does it for $29 per inbox with unlimited users; Help Scout does it for $25 per user with more features around it. The two side by side.
Questions
The short answers.
- How do we let several people answer support@yourcompany.com in Outlook?
- In the Microsoft 365 admin centre, go to Teams & groups, then Shared mailboxes. Add a shared mailbox and give it the address support@yourcompany.com. Under Members, add everyone who should read and reply. In Outlook, the mailbox appears in the folder list automatically within about an hour. That gives everyone access to the mailbox, but not ownership: nothing shows who has taken a conversation, which is where most teams eventually add a shared inbox tool.
- Does Outlook charge extra for this?
- No. A Microsoft 365 shared mailbox needs no additional licence as long as it stays under the storage cap and nobody signs into it directly.
- Do we have to change our support address to use SharedReply?
- No. You keep support@yourcompany.com and forward it to the address we give you. Your existing mailbox keeps receiving everything as before, so you can stop at any time by removing one forwarding rule.
- What does SharedReply cost?
- $29 per inbox per month, with unlimited users, so a team of 5 pays the same as a team of one. It is free while it is in beta.
Read next
Every tool, on price
What six shared inbox tools cost a team of five, with sources and dates.
A Help Scout alternative
A long-established help desk built around a shared inbox, with a knowledge base, live chat and AI add-ons on top.
The same thing in Gmail
What Gmail can do on its own, and where it stops.
Keep support@ where it is. Just let the team see it.
One forwarding rule in Outlook, and everyone sees every email, who owns it, and whether it has been answered.
Free while in beta. Unlimited users on every plan.