Inboxes
Inboxes are a great way to accept files from people who are not registered users on your site. There are two ways you can ask your users to submit or send their files to your inbox: Uploading files via web portal or by simply sending an email with attachments. You can use the same inbox to accept files through web or email.
Use cases for inboxes include things like:
- accepting contest applications from the public
- allowing customers to easily send you photos
- collecting form submissions
- collecting files though emails (more use cases listed here)
Inboxes can be customized with a registration form, and can also be emailed to specific recipients. When emailed through Files.com, the email recipients will receive an inbox link to upload the files. Alternatively, you can communicate your inbox URL or inbound email address of your inbox directly to your users or even publish the inbox link or email address of your inbox in your public facing website or your intranet portal.
Inboxes are intended for use cases where the user of the inbox would not be a regular user of your site.
Each inbox exists on its own, and each inbox session is treated independently. This means that visitors will not be able to see other files in the Inbox, including files they may have uploaded in a previous session.
If you require visitors to interact with files after uploading, you should create User accounts for these visitors.
Site administrators and users who have admin permissions for a folder can create an unlimited number of inboxes associated with a folder, allowing a custom URL and description for each Inbox use without changing the folder structure for storing the files.
Follow these steps to create an Inbox:
- Navigate into the folder where you want to create your Inbox and click the Folder Settings button.
- Scroll down, click Inboxes and then click the Add Inbox button.
- The Add new Inbox dialog box displays. This form allows you to customize your Inbox.
- Click the Save button to finish creating your Inbox.
The inbox is now created, and you can access it by clicking the hyperlinked Inbox key. You can also click the buttons for accessing the link directly or copying the URL to your clipboard. If you created the inbox with setting Allow uploads to this inbox via Email, you can also copy the email address of your inbox to your clipboard.
To create an inbox for a folder, you must either be a site administrator or have admin access to the folder.
Files.com provides several settings for inboxes that allow you to customize the behavior of your inbox.
Inbox title is the name for the Inbox, displayed to users when viewing the Inbox.
Inbox key will determine the URL of the Inbox. By default, this field will populate with a value similar to your Inbox title, but you can modify this to be anything you wish. This value only determines the URL used to access this Inbox, and must be unique to the entire site.
For example, if your Inbox key is photos, your Inbox URL will be something like https˸//SUBDOMAIN.files.com/u/photos.
Inbox description is an optional description for your Inbox. This text is publicly displayed on the Inbox and index pages.
Help text is optional, instructional text that will be shown to people who are viewing this Inbox and preparing to upload files.
Clickwrap is an optional setting to use with inbox. If enabled, users will be required to agree to the clickwrap terms before getting access to inbox.
Require password - If enabled, users will need to provide the password you specify before being granted access to this inbox.
Show on login page - Check this option to have this Inbox displayed on the site login page, or leave unchecked to make this a standalone Inbox only.
Disable folder uploads - If enabled, only files can be uploaded and users can not upload folders to the inbox. This is useful when you want to restrict your inbox for files only
Require registration - Check this option to require users to provide their contact information before being granted access to this Inbox.
Site admins can enable the setting "Require logout from Share Links and inboxes". When this is enabled, the "Remember me" checkbox is not displayed on registration forms, and visitors will be prompted for registration information every time they visit Inboxes.
Custom form - If selected, users will be required to complete the form before being granted access to the inbox. This is useful when you want to collect the information like Name, Email, Company etc., of your inbox users. Also, this information can be used to separate the submissions into subfolders with below setting.
Separate submissions into subfolders - If enabled, each submission to this Inbox will be uploaded into a subfolder within the Inbox destination folder (as opposed to being uploaded directly into the destination folder). Disabling this may result in security risks.
If registration is required, subfolders will be named according to the registration details provided by the uploader. Otherwise, subfolders will be given a generic, numbered "Submission" name (Submission 1, Submission 2, etc.).
Subfolder name template - When both the Require registrations and the Separate submissions into folders options are enabled for an inbox, this setting determines the naming scheme for automatically created subfolders. Any field that is available in the registration form (even if you are using a Custom form for registration) is listed as a button below the field. Clicking on the button inserts a placeholder into the subfolder name template. When the files are uploaded, the value from the registration form will be substituted for the placeholder.
- By default, the subfolder name template will be set to "{{email}}" and whatever email address your inbox visitor enters in the registration form will be used as the name for the subfolder their uploaded files will be placed in.
- If you make the setting blank, subfolders will have an automatically generated unique name.
Note: Special, reserved, and restricted characters will be omitted from subfolder names when the Subfolder name template option is used.
This is to ensure that the created submission subfolders have names that are compatible with every operating system and every storage solution.
Allow uploads to this inbox via Email - If enabled, an email address will be generated for this inbox. Anyone with this email address can submit or upload files directly to this Inbox by forwarding email attachments or sending files to the email address using their own mail client. When this setting is enabled, the system will display an email address for the inbox.
To send an acknowledgment receipt email to the sender whenever there is a successful upload via email to the inbox, select "Notify senders on successful upload via Email" before clicking Save.
To whitelist the senders who can upload the files, select the option "Allow only these senders to upload via Email". With this setting, the uploads to the inbox can be restricted to specified sender email addresses or email domains (example: *@example.com or @example.com). Only the specified senders can upload files to the inbox and all other senders will be discarded by the system. This is the secure way to restrict the uploads via Email and you can whitelist up to 10 email addresses or email domains.
A site administrator must enable Inbound email authentication prior to whitelisting senders. To find this setting, type Enable inbound email authentication in the search box at the top of ever page and click on the matching entry. Scroll down to the Enable inbound email authentication setting. By enabling the inbound email authentication, the whitelisted email addresses or domains will be verified via SPF, DKIM and DMARC to prevent spoofing or other misuse. Emails that do not pass these checks will be discarded by the system.
If you are not receiving files via email in your inbox after enabling the Inbound email authentication setting, it's likely because the sender's domain lacks proper DMARC or SPF or DKIM configuration. In such cases, you can temporarily disable the Inbound email authentication and contact the senders to rectify their domain's DMARC, SPF and DKIM settings accurately.
Because there is no way to collect any registration or authentication information from the email, settings listed under Upload via Web are not applicable for Uploads via Email. You must first disable "Require password" and "Require registration" to enable Uploads via Email.
After configuring an Inbox, you may optionally choose to have Files.com send the URL to one or more recipients via email. Simply click the Share via email button, and enter the recipient email address(es) in the Send to box. You may include a custom message in the email by entering it in the Add a custom message box. Finally, click the Send email button.
You can paste an entire list of up to 50 email addresses (separated by commas or by spaces) in the "Paste multiple addresses" field, then click the Add emails button to fill out the forms for your addresses.
Recipients of Inbox URLs that have been shared via email but who have not yet visited your Inbox will be displayed at the bottom of the Share via Email page for each individual Inbox. A table containing the details of the recipient of the Share Link email will display, containing the Company Name, Note(s), Email, and the sent date.
Share Groups save you time when you need to invite the same groups of people to different Inboxes. You can store up to 50 recipients as a Share Group, with an optional note for easy reference.
Creating a new Share Group
You can create new Share Groups at the time of sending email invitations. After you have entered the contact information to send emails, check the box labeled "Save as a new Share Group", then enter a name for the group and an optional note. When you click Send email to finish sending your invitations, all of the recipients will be stored as a Share Group.
Using an existing Share Group
When you have at least one Share Group, the Share via Email page of an Inbox will show a field for "Choose a Share Group". You can search for your share group by typing the name of the group, part of the note, or even an email address of a recipient in that group. Once you select your Share Group, all of the recipients will be added to the contact forms below.
Updating an existing Share Group
When you select a Share Group and then make changes to the recipients before sending your Inbox invitations, you can check the checkbox "Update Share Group" to save all of the changes you have made.
Site administrators can view and manage Inboxes by clicking on the Sharing icon in the left pane, and clicking the Inboxes tab.
A list of all Inboxes will be displayed.
To access your Inbox or grab the public URL, click on the hyperlinked Inbox key. This will open your public inbox in a new tab of your current browser window. You can also right-click on the link and select Copy Link Address to copy the URL directly to your clipboard.
You can copy the inbound email address of your inbox directly from Manage inboxes screen.
Clicking the Edit button will open the Inbox's settings, allowing you to make changes to all associated fields.
For scenarios where submission of folders needs to be disabled for the Inbox, for example: Automations and Integrations which expect files and not folders, this will require disabling folder submission for the Inbox. In order to prevent submission of Folders to an Inbox, Site administrators must enable the setting Disable folder uploads, this will ensure only files can be uploaded to the Inbox.
If your inbox has an inbound email address associated with it and you no longer want to accept files via email to that corresponding inbox or folder, you can always disable the uploads via email by clicking on Edit of the corresponding inbox, go to Settings and disable Allow uploads to this inbox via Email.
Site administrators can delete an Inbox by clicking the Delete button. Deleting an Inbox will immediately disable its URL and its email address (if enabled), but will not impact the folder itself, or any files previously uploaded via the Inbox.
Inboxes can also be attached to Share Links, allowing a Share Link to provide two-way data transfer. To achieve this, create the Inbox first, then attach it to the Share Link during Share Link creation.
Files may be uploaded to an Inbox either by clicking the Upload button and selecting files to upload, or by dragging and dropping files directly onto the page.
As visitors upload files, they can see the size and completion status of their uploads. When a file upload completes, the interface will confirm the "Completed" status to the uploader.
Visitors to an Inbox URL can never see the files that others have uploaded, and can only see their own uploads during their upload session. However, users who are logged in to the site and have the appropriate permissions will be able to see the files immediately upon upload.
To ensure the security of all uploads to your site, Inbox uploads are encrypted with the same high-strength encryption as uploads performed by logged-in users.
If your inbox has setting Allow uploads to this inbox via Email enabled, anyone who has the email address of that inbox can send files directly to your inbox (or to the folder associated with that inbox). To do this, your users or systems like scanner, CCTV, x-ray machines etc., can use their own email client (like Outlook, Gmail or any SMTP client) and use this email address in To or Cc or Bcc fields to send attachments through email. CRM or ERP or HRMS applications like Salesforce, Workday, Marketo, ServiceNow etc. can also upload files directly to the inboxes using the email address. Users can even forward the emails with attachments to this email address. Please note that, the body and the subject of the email will not be uploaded to your inbox or associated folder. Only attached files will be uploaded and files with the same name will be overwritten.
Note that the content in the email body will not be uploaded to your inbox. If your email body contains embedded images or images in the email signatures, those images will be uploaded to the inbox along with the actual email attachments.
Inboxes can be embedded within web pages, allowing you to present an uploadable Inbox to the audiences of your own web sites.
To embed an Inbox, you'll need the Inbox key that you specified when you created the Inbox.
There are two segments of HTML code that need to be placed into your web page's HTML.
The first segment should be placed at the beginning of the `<BODY>` element of your web page:
<div id="filescom-root"></div>
<script async defer src="https://jssdk.files.com/sdk/sdk.js"></script>
The second segment is placed anywhere within the <BODY> element of your web page, including within sub-elements such as <P> paragraphs and <TABLE> tables:
<div class="filescom-inbox" data-key="INBOX_KEY" data-site="SUBDOMAIN.files.com"></div>
NOTE: Replace INBOX_KEY with the corresponding Inbox Key of the Inbox and replace SUBDOMAIN with your Files.com custom subdomain.
You can also embed multiple Inboxes, using multiple instances of the second code segment, in the web page. For example:
<BODY>
<H2>First Inbox</H2>
<P><div class="filescom-inbox" data-key="FIRST_INBOX_KEY" data-site="SUBDOMAIN.files.com"></div></P>
<H2>Second Inbox</H2>
<P><div class="filescom-inbox" data-key="SECOND_INBOX_KEY" data-site="SUBDOMAIN.files.com"></div></P>
</BODY>
When embedding multiple Inboxes you do not need to have multiples copies of the first code segment.
You can access the code snippets, options for embedding, and an interactive preview of an Inbox through the Web UI. Edit the settings for your inbox, then navigate to the Embedding sub-tab.
On this tab, you can change the settings for:
- Show Title - Un-checking the checkbox will update the preview of your Inbox form to hide the title.
- Color - You can change the main color used for the button of your Inbox form by typing in a hex code value or clicking on the color swatch to select a new color.
- Height - This allows you to set a minimum height, in pixels, for the embedded Inbox div element. If you do not specify a height, the Inbox will take up 100% of the height of the div element's container.
- Width - Set a minimum width, in pixels, for the embedded Inbox div element. If you do not specify a width, the Inbox will take up 100% of the width of the div element's container.
Changing any of those settings will immediately update both the preview of your Inbox form and the code snippets you can copy for your own site.
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