View and Manage Inbox Messages

Use Mailchimp Inbox to manage your conversations and coordinate replies from your subscribed contacts. Organize your messages with labels, internal comments, and other familiar inbox tools.

In this article, you’ll learn how to view and manage Inbox messages.

Before you start

Here are some things to know.

• Make sure you’re familiar with how Mailchimp Inbox works. To learn more, check out Set Up Your Mailchimp Inbox. For mobile devices, check out View and Manage Inbox Messages on Mobile.
• Before you can manage SMS Inbox messages, you must set up an SMS Marketing program and get approved.
• Users with a Free plan can reply to Inbox messages from emails or surveys and to a contact's direct message.
• You’ll need a paid Marketing plan to message email contacts with Inbox if you haven’t had an interaction with them before.
• You need a Standard plan or higher to message SMS contacts with Inbox.
• Your account user level must be Manager or higher to use Inbox. Each audience in your Mailchimp account has its own Inbox.
• Outbound emails sent with Inbox count towards your plan’s monthly send limit. SMS credits are required to send outbound SMS messages.
• A direct message sent to your Inbox email address or SMS phone number will only appear if it’s from a contact in your audience.
• Email attachments must be less than 25MB in size. PDF, JPG, PNG, and GIF are the allowed file types in Inbox. At this time, MMS isn’t available with Inbox.

Access your Inbox

To access your email and SMS Inbox messages, follow these steps.

1. Click Audience, then click Inbox.
   

2. If you have more than 1 audience, click the drop-down, then choose the one you want to work with.

Nice job! As new messages arrive in your Inbox, we’ll organize them based on their source and their status. The source is where the messages come from: email replies, SMS replies, contact forms, surveys, or other platforms. To learn how to add or remove sources, check out Set Up Your Mailchimp Inbox.

The status helps you track which messages you or your account teammates have responded to: To Do, Done, or Trash.

Add labels

You can also create custom labels for extra organization.

To add a label, follow these steps.

1. In the Labels menu, click Manage.
2. Click Add label, then enter a name in the Label Name field.
3. Click Save.

Your new labels will appear in the Inbox sidebar.

View and manage messages

Click a message preview to view it, as well as any associated replies. From here, you can compose a response, mark it as Done, or choose from other options designed to help you organize your Inbox and collaborate with your fellow account users.

Here’s an overview of the different options you have when you view a message.

• Tag Contact
  Apply or remove tags to a contact based on how your conversation is going or what they might need.
• Mark as Trash
  Moves an email or SMS thread to Trash. Messages will not be permanently removed from your Inbox unless a contact is permanently deleted from an audience.
• Add Comment
  Use comments to share notes about the email or SMS thread with other account users. Managers, Admins, and Owners can reply to existing comments on internal conversations and tag other account users to bring attention to a message. When a comment is added, account users with Inbox notifications enabled receive an email, browser, or mobile notification about the comment.
• Label
  Apply or remove labels to organize your email or SMS threads by topic or with related details.
• Mark as Done
  Moves an email or SMS thread to Done. When a conversation is finished, this gets it out of the way.

Reply to an email or text message

You can reply to email or text messages in your Inbox to engage in 1-to-1 communication with your subscribed contacts.

If you’re replying to a text message in your Inbox, there are a few things to keep in mind.

• SMS credits are required to send outbound text messages.
• You can reply to an SMS contact up to 3 times within a 7-day period.
• If the 7-day window expires, you can view an SMS thread, but you can no longer reply.
• The 7-day window resets each time an SMS contact sends a new message.
• SMS quiet hours aren’t enforced or required with Inbox, but they’re disclosed in case you need to reference them.

To reply to an email or SMS message, follow these steps.

1. In your Mailchimp Inbox, click the message thread you want to reply to, then click Reply.
2. In the editor, draft your email or SMS response.
3. When you’re ready to reply, click Send Email or Send SMS.

At this time, you can reply to SMS messages with Inbox, but you can’t create a new SMS conversation thread.

Send a new message

You can start a new conversation with an email contact in your audience. You can also message email contacts directly from their contact profile or survey response.

From Inbox

To send a new email message from your Inbox, follow these steps.

1. In the Inbox sidebar, click Compose.
2. Click Send Email next to the contact you want to send a message to. You can also search for the contact in the search bar.
3. Add a Subject, edit your From name as needed, and draft your email message in the editor.
4. If you want to use a template, click the Insert Message Template icon button. If you want to include a file, click the Add attachment icon and choose a file from your computer.
   
5. Toggle the Include Opt-Out Footer slider on or off as needed.
   
6. When you’re ready to send a new email message, click Send Email.

From the contact profile

To send a new email message from the contact profile, follow these steps.

1. Click Audience, then click All contacts.
   
2. Click the contact you want to send an Inbox message to, then click Send Message.
3. Add a Subject, edit your From name as needed, and draft your email message in the editor.
4. If you want to use a template, click the Insert Message Template icon. If you want to include a file, click the Add attachment icon and choose a file from your computer.
   
5. Toggle the Include Opt-Out Footer slider on or off as needed.
6. When you’re ready to send a new email message, click Send Email.

From a survey response

If you’re running a Mailchimp survey, use Inbox to reply to those who complete it and share their email address.

To send a new email message from a survey response, follow these steps.

1. Click Audience, then click Surveys.
   
2. Click View results next to the survey you want to work with.
3. In the Contacts side panel, hover over the contact you want to send an email message to, then click Send Message. If the survey responder didn’t provide an email address, you won’t see this option.
4. Add a Subject, edit your From name as needed, and draft your email message in the editor.
5. If you want to use a template, click the Insert Message Template icon. If you want to include a file, click the Add attachment icon and choose a file from your computer.
   
6. Toggle the Include Opt-Out Footer slider on or off as needed.
7. When you’re ready to send a new email message, click Send Email.

View current Inbox activity

With Inbox, you can see what your teammates are doing in real time. To help prevent duplicate replies, Inbox shows you when other account users are using the feature while you are. View who’s online, what message they’re reading, and whether they’re typing out a response.