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› How to Open Other Users' Folders
Shared folders let colleagues see a common mailbox — a support queue, a finance inbox, a project-specific thread — without juggling multiple accounts. This tutorial shows how to open a folder that someone on your SmartXHosting domain has shared with you, what you can do inside it based on the permission level, and a few patterns that work well for UK business teams.
On SmartXHosting's Axigen platform, any user can share any of their mailbox folders with one or more other users on the same domain. The owner decides who gets access and what they can do — from read-only to full manage. The shared folder appears inside the recipient's webmail, and the recipient can use it as if it were their own, within the limits the owner set.
Typical use cases:
- A shared
support@ mailbox where multiple team members triage tickets.
- A line manager and a direct report sharing visibility on sent correspondence during a handover.
- A finance team with access to a colleague's Invoices folder during a holiday period.
- A project inbox where multiple stakeholders can read the archive but only the project lead replies.
- You and the folder owner are both users on the same SmartXHosting Axigen domain (sharing does not work cross-domain).
- The owner has explicitly shared the folder with your mailbox address.
- You know the owner's full email address (needed to find the shared folder on first access).
On mobile webmail:
- Tap the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top-left.
- Scroll to the bottom of the side panel.
- Tap All email folders.
- On the Choose Folder page, scroll to the bottom and tap Open Other User's Folders.
- Enter the email address of the folder owner (e.g.
[email protected]).
- Webmail lists the folders that user has shared with you. Tap any folder to open it.
On desktop webmail:
- Right-click anywhere in the folder tree.
- Choose Open Shared Folder.
- Enter the owner's email address.
- Select the folder to open.
Shared folders you open in this way are added to your folder tree under a "Shared" section, so you do not need to repeat the steps on subsequent sessions.
The owner selects your permission level when sharing. Axigen uses this matrix:
| Level | Read | Write | Delete | Manage permissions |
|---|
| Viewer | Yes | No | No | No |
| Contributor | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Manager | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
A read-only (Viewer) share is the most common for audit-style visibility. Manager is rare and should be limited to deputies who need to re-share.
The actions you see in a shared folder depend on your permission level:
- Viewer. You can read messages and search them. You cannot reply directly from the folder — use Forward instead if you need to share content with someone else. You cannot delete or move messages.
- Contributor. You can reply to messages. New replies are sent from your own address by default — unless you configure a "Send as" identity for the shared mailbox. You can add folders within the shared folder.
- Editor. All Contributor permissions plus the ability to delete messages and move them within the shared folder tree.
- Manager. Full control including re-sharing the folder with other users.
A few sharing patterns that work well for UK business teams:
- Shared support@ inbox with "Send as" identity. Two or three support agents each have Contributor access. All of them configured "Send as [email protected]" in their own identity settings. Replies appear to come from the shared address, so customers see a single point of contact.
- Holiday cover. When a colleague is on annual leave, temporary Editor share on their Inbox lets a named deputy triage and reply on their behalf. Revoked at the end of the leave period.
- Finance / accounts payable. A dedicated finance@ mailbox shared with the CFO (Manager), the accounts clerk (Editor), and the company director (Viewer). Visibility all round; only the clerk actively replies.
- Regulated correspondence archive. FCA-regulated firms or law firms create a "Regulated mail" archive folder, Editor-shared with the compliance officer. All regulator correspondence is moved into that folder for easy audit access.
- Board correspondence. A dedicated "Board papers" folder owned by the company secretary, Viewer-shared with directors and non-execs. Read-only access preserves the chain of custody.
Desktop IMAP clients (eM Client, Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird) can also access shared folders via the IMAP ACL extension. Setup differs per client:
- eM Client. Subscribe to the shared folder via Tools › Subscribe. Enter the shared folder path in IMAP notation:
user/[email protected]/Inbox.
- Apple Mail. Mailbox › Add Mailbox on IMAP, using the same path.
- Outlook. File › Account Settings › Advanced › Add Other Folders. Enter the owner's address.
The shared folder then appears in the desktop client's folder pane alongside your own folders.
If the owner revokes your access, the shared folder vanishes from your webmail on your next session refresh. Any messages you downloaded locally (via a desktop client's offline cache) remain on your device; only the server-side access is terminated.
UK GDPR reminder: if you previously had access to personal data in a shared folder and that access is revoked, any local copy you retained may need to be deleted to remain compliant. Desktop clients' cached copies are easy to forget.
SmartXHosting's Axigen applies granular per-folder ACLs. Business Email supports unlimited sharing relationships per mailbox at no extra cost, with fine-grained permission levels and audit logs that record who opened which shared folder and when.
Q: Can I share with someone outside my organisation?
A: No. Sharing works only between users on the same Axigen server and domain. Cross-organisation collaboration should use forwarding rules or a dedicated shared mailbox.
Q: Do I see shared folders in search results?
A: Yes. Once you open a shared folder once, it is included in the "All folders" search scope in your webmail.
Q: Does reading a shared folder notify the owner?
A: No. The owner sees audit logs if they query them explicitly, but there is no per-read notification.
Q: What if two users edit a message at the same time?
A: Actions are serialised on the server; whoever's action arrives first wins. Flag status, move, and delete are all atomic operations.
Q: How many users can share a single folder?
A: No hard limit. Large shares (50+ users) may slow operations slightly; for big support-team setups, a dedicated shared mailbox is architecturally cleaner than a personal folder shared with many.