Move off a shared inbox without the risk.
Run support from a Gmail or Outlook shared inbox today? You can move to owned tickets cleanly, with no MX change and no flag-day cut-over. Add a brand, connect a mailbox, forward your support address into Solves, and new mail arrives as owned tickets with owners, states, SLA timers and private notes. Your old threads stay put.
Forwarding-first, no MX change · New mail becomes owned tickets · Your old inbox stays untouched
The short answer
Forward your support address in, start taking owned tickets
You do not migrate a shared inbox by pointing your whole domain at a new provider and hoping. You migrate it by forwarding one address. In Solves you add a brand, connect a mailbox, set a forward from your support address into the mailbox address we give you, and the next email becomes an owned ticket.
A shared inbox like support@ or info@ in Gmail or Outlook is fine for the first few enquiries. It stops scaling the moment two people open the same message: replies collide, threads get answered twice or not at all, and there is no real owner, no priority, no timer and no private place to discuss a tricky customer.
Owned tickets fix that. Every email gets one owner and a clear state, from New through Open, Waiting for Customer, Snoozed, Resolved and Closed. It carries a priority, tags, an SLA timer, and private notes customers never see. The work is the same email your customers already send. What changes is that it stops being everyone's problem and nobody's job.
Why a shared inbox stops scaling
The four things a shared inbox cannot give you
- No ownership: any reply can clash with a colleague's, so customers get two answers or none, and nobody is accountable.
- No state or priority: every message looks the same, so an urgent refund sits next to a newsletter reply and ageing tickets slip.
- No timers: there is no way to see what is breaching a response target, so you find out you are slow when a customer chases.
- No private space: discussing a tricky case means a separate chat or a risky note that could reach the customer by accident.
Solves keeps the email-first simplicity your team already understands and adds the structure a shared inbox lacks. You are not learning a contact-centre suite. You are giving the same inbox an owner, a clock and a backstage.
What you gain on day one
What new mail looks like once it lands in Solves
Every forwarded message becomes structured, owned work, with no change to what your customer sees.
A real owner
Each ticket is assigned to one person, so there is no doubt about who is replying and no two people answer the same customer at once.
Clear states
New, Open, Waiting for Customer, Snoozed, Resolved and Closed, with priority and tags, so the queue shows what needs attention now.
SLA timers
First-response and resolution timers with per-brand targets, and a breaching view that surfaces what is overdue.
Private notes
Discuss a case in private notes that are hard-separated from the reply, so internal chat can never reach the customer by mistake.
Saved replies
Insert a saved reply scoped to your brand or shared across the organisation, so common answers stay consistent without retyping.
Saved queue views
Work New, Unassigned, Waiting, Snoozed, Breaching SLA or Resolved, filtered by mailbox, assignee, state, priority and tag.
How the move works
A forwarding-first migration, step by step
A forwarding-first move is reversible and low-stakes. You never repoint your domain, so your existing email keeps working throughout. Here is what happens when you switch a support address.
- You add a brand in Solves for the identity customers write to, with its name, default from-name and signature.
- You connect a mailbox to that brand and run the guided, plain-English mailbox checks. Solves gives you a mailbox address to forward to.
- In Gmail or Outlook, you set your support address to forward to that mailbox address. Your root MX records do not change.
- The next email to support@ lands in Solves as an owned ticket, ready to assign, prioritise, time and reply to from your brand.
Why there is no risky MX change
Changing MX records repoints your entire domain's mail to a new provider in one move. Get it wrong and you can lose or delay every email, not just support. Forwarding-first avoids that. Your mail still arrives where it always has, and a copy of one address is forwarded into Solves. The blast radius of a mistake is one forward rule you can remove in seconds, not your whole inbox.
Live sending stays gated until your mailbox is verified
So that replies reach customers and do not bounce or land in spam, Solves keeps live sending for a mailbox blocked until its DNS checks pass, or until a recorded override is in place. You forward and start capturing owned tickets straight away; outbound replies switch on once the brand's sender identity is verified. That protects your deliverability.
You start clean, and that is usually a feature
Solves does not bulk-import your old Gmail or Outlook history into the queue. Your past threads stay in your inbox, searchable as ever, while Solves takes over new mail. You begin with a clean, owned queue instead of inheriting thousands of old, unowned messages. For most teams, starting fresh is the point of the move.
Doing it well
Migrating cleanly without a flag-day cut-over
Because forwarding does not change where mail is delivered, you can run Solves and your shared inbox side by side while the team settles in. There is no single moment where everything has to work or nothing does. Forward the address, work the new owned tickets, and let anything already in flight get its next reply through Solves.
A sensible order for switching addresses
If you run support, info and accounts addresses, you do not have to move them at once. Start with your busiest address, verify its mailbox, and get comfortable with owned tickets for a few days. Then forward the next address in. Each address is an independent, reversible step.
Multi-brand teams move the same way, per brand
If you support more than one customer-facing brand, the move is identical, just repeated per brand. Each brand gets its own mailbox and forward, keeps its own sender identity, and shares one unified queue. You migrate one brand at a time and go live with each as its mailbox check passes.
Email-first, on purpose
Solves handles support email: owned tickets, ownership, states, SLAs, private notes and multi-brand. It does not do live chat, phone or social inboxes. Moving off a shared inbox is about giving the email you already get the structure it has always lacked.
FAQ
Shared inbox migration questions
Do I lose my old emails when I move off a shared inbox?
No. Solves does not touch anything in your Gmail or Outlook account. Your existing threads stay where they are, fully searchable in your old inbox. Solves starts handling new mail from the moment you forward your support address in.
Does Solves bulk-import my shared-inbox history?
No, and that is deliberate. Solves does not pull your past Gmail or Outlook threads into the queue, so you begin with a clean, owned queue rather than thousands of old, unowned messages. Anything still live when you switch over gets its next reply through Solves, which becomes its first owned ticket.
Do I have to change my MX records or risk my email?
No. The move is forwarding-first, so your mail provider and your root MX records stay untouched. You set a forward from your support address into the mailbox address Solves gives you. To stop, you remove the forward and mail flows as before.
How long does it take to switch from a Gmail or Outlook shared inbox?
For a single support address, most teams are taking new tickets the same day. Adding the brand and connecting the mailbox takes a few minutes, and setting the forward takes a few more. Verifying the mailbox with the plain-English DNS steps is the part that depends on your DNS. Live sending stays gated until that check passes or a recorded override is in place.
Can I keep my team working in Gmail or Outlook during the switch?
Yes. Because forwarding does not change where mail is delivered, you can run both side by side while you settle in. Many teams forward into Solves, work the new owned tickets there, and wind the old shared inbox down once the queue feels right.
Will customers see a different reply address after we move?
No. Replies go out from your brand's own support address and signature, so the conversation looks the same to the customer. The difference is on your side: each message becomes an owned ticket with an owner, a state, an SLA timer and private notes.
Move off your shared inbox the safe way
Start at £29, forward one support address in, and take your first owned ticket today. No MX change.