About Shared Inboxes

The new feature allows several team members to send and receive emails having a shared account. Also, users can:

• assign emails to themselves or other team members
• discuss emails in a private chat
• compose emails together in real time
• set deadlines for assigned emails

All new emails in a shared inbox are automatically available to anyone who has access to it. Spark notifies a specific person if an email is assigned to that person and when it is marked as done.

Who the feature is available to

The feature Shared Inboxes is available to Spark for Teams users with Gmail or Google Workplace accounts. The Shared Inboxes feature is part of the Premium offering in Spark for Teams. The subscription cost in 2021 is $7.99 per user/month or $6.40 per user/month if you buy the annual plan.

At the time of publication, this feature is available in Spark for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The Android version will appear in July 2021, the company says.

How to enable the shared inbox

• Launch Spark and ensure that you update to the latest version
• Open Spark’s Preferences and click on the ‘Accounts’ tab
• Under ‘Private Accounts,’ locate the account you want to share
• Click on ‘Share Account with Team’ at the bottom right

• Select your team and confirm that you indeed want to share the account with that team on the next screen
• Now under the ‘Members’ tab on the right, you can Add/Remove team members who have access to this Shared Inbox.

What’s new in iOS:

• New design. The appearance of the application has completely changed.
• Avatars of senders. Spark shows photos of people and company logo next to messages, helping to quickly navigate in the mailbox.
• Custom set of actions. You can customize Spark to suit your needs and choose which options will be displayed on the lower toolbar when viewing a message (mark as read, delete, reply later, etc.)
• Multi-window support in iPadOS. Now you can read a long message in the left half of the screen and reply in the right.

Dark mode in iOS and Android. The dark theme is available to all users, regardless of the version of the operating system. Spark can also automatically switch to a dark theme if you enable system dark mode in iOS 13 or Android 10.

Readdle notes that the new Android app features all key functions of the service:

• Smart inbox: sorting emails by priority.
• Smart notifications: notifications only from important users.
• Collaboration: allows to discuss letters in a team and collaborate on message creation.
• Additional tools include temporary disabling notifications, scheduling emails, reminders, etc.

The company says it is going to add a number of tools in the nearest future: support of third-party services, calendar, quick replies, email templates, and delegation.

A reporter Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge, who tested the app, noted that “it is as good as the original iOS version. It’s fast and responsive, especially for searching the thousands of archived emails I’ve got kicking around my account, and offers all the customization features that Spark is known for.”

Similar to other Spark email clients, its Android app comes in free and paid Premium and Enterprise versions that target companies.

Previously, AIN.UA informed that Gmail allowed its users to schedule emails.