Getting around the mailbox
Where your mail lives, what each folder is for, and how to read, archive, flag and file conversations.
Updated 18 October 2026
Why this exists
Writing to families from a personal inbox scatters the centre's conversations across private accounts, and nobody can see what was said. Your mailbox keeps every conversation with families on your centre's own address, in folders you can sort quickly. You spend less time hunting for the last message and more time answering it.
The mailbox at Mail is where you write to families and read their replies. Every staff member, tutors included, has their own mailbox on your centre's email address.
Before you start
Your centre must have email connected under Settings > Integrations. Until it does, staff have no mailbox and the page says email is not connected.
The folders
- Inbox: new mail and replies from families.
- Needs reply: mail from outside the centre that you have not answered yet.
- Unread and Flagged: conversations you have not opened, or have flagged to come back to.
- Snoozed: conversations hidden until a time you chose.
- Scheduled: messages waiting to go at a time you set.
- Sent, Archive, Junk and Deleted.
- Family support: messages families sent you through the portal.
- Your folders: make your own with New folder.
Work with a conversation
- Open a conversation from the list. It shows in the reading pane.
- Use the toolbar to Reply, Reply all, Forward, Archive, Delete, mark as Junk, flag it or move it to a folder.
- To deal with several at once, tick them in the list. A bar appears to archive, delete, flag, mark read or move up to 100 at a time.
- Hover over a row (or use the buttons on it) for quick read, flag, snooze, archive and delete.
- You can also drag a row onto a folder, the Inbox, Archive, Junk or Deleted.
Good to know
- A reply from a family brings an archived or deleted conversation back to your Inbox.
- Pictures from other servers stay hidden until you press Show pictures, because they can tell a sender when you read their mail. There are no read receipts.
- Print prints the open conversation. Open in a new window shows it on its own.
- Unsent drafts are saved in your browser and cleared when you sign out, so a shared iPad never shows them to the next person.