Inboxes are permanent locations that accept files from people who are not registered users on your site. Depending upon how you've configured your inbox, there are 2 ways your counterparties can submit their files: either through a web page or by sending an email with attachments. The same inbox can accept files through web and through email.

Inboxes are useful for accepting contest applications from the public, allowing customers to easily send you digital assets for processing, collecting form submissions, collecting files though emails, and many more.

Inboxes can be customized with a registration form, and can also be emailed to specific recipients. When emailed through your site, the email recipients will receive a 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.

Example Use Case: Collect Job Application Forms

In this scenario, you need to collect not only a completed application form, but also custom demographic information.

Add an Inbox for your folder and require visitors to provide registration info. Customize the registration form to add the demographic fields you want to collect. You can embed the inbox into your own corporate site right alongside your job listings board.

You can automatically organize the uploaded files into separate sub-folders to keep each applicant's data separate from other applicants. For instance, you could automatically create sub folders with the job title, applicant's name and date of submission. If different teams need to be notified about responses to specific job listings, you can use email notifications to alert the appropriate people as appliations are submitted.

Example Use Case: Download a Form and Submit to An Inbox

In this scenario, you have a PDF order ticket that needs to be downloaded by your customers and then uploaded along with other files to be printed. You want to use an Inbox for the upload submissions, and provide the PDF order ticket though a Share Link.

After you create a Share Link that contains the PDFs to be downloaded, and configure it to allow visitors to download from the link, associate the desired Inbox with your Share Link.

When visitors access the Share Link, the interface will show both the Share Link and the Inbox in the same URL.

Example Use Case: Receive Timesheets via Email

In this scenario, you have a group of contractors who submit electronic timesheets as email attachments. The contractors don't need to access any files in your site, and you don't want to create user accounts for every possible employee of each contracting company.

Create an Inbox for the timesheets to upload to, and then configure it to accept uploads via Email. If you enable inbound email authentication, you can add a list of acceptable email domains that are permitted to email to the inbox. This prevents invalid uploads from other addresses if your inbox email address is shared inappropriately.

You can take this protection even further by configuring the folder settings for your inbox folder to restrict what files can be uploaded. For example, you could reject any files that do not have a specific extension, or that don't match a specific file name pattern.

Since the contractors will care very much whether their timesheets were received, you can enable an automatic email reply whenever a file is successfully uploaded via email.

If any problems arise, you can use the inbound emails log for troubleshooting any failed uploads.

Example Use Case: Receive Files from Devices via Email

Scanners, multi-functional devices, CCTV, X-ray machines or similar devices can email files directly to a folder in your site. Folder Admins can share the received content, create an automation, or integrate with notification services.

Inboxes vs User Accounts

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. As a result, 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 instead create User accounts for those visitors.

Inboxes vs Share Links - Permanent vs Temporary

The big idea is that Inboxes are built to last, while Share Links are meant to expire.

An Inbox acts like a permanent doorway into a folder. Once created by a site or folder administrator, that doorway stays open indefinitely, until an admin decides to close it. It doesn't reveal what's inside, but it allows people to add files. The main purpose of an Inbox is to collect files from others in a lasting way.

A Share Link, on the other hand, is temporary by design. Its primary purpose is to share files out with others, though admins may optionally allow uploads as well. Share Links remain active only for a limited time, ranging from days to months, depending on your site’s policies. This makes them ideal for short-term collaboration or distribution, but not for ongoing collection.

Permanence impacts everything about how Inboxes work. An Inbox is always tied to one specific folder, and it can even be listed right on your site’s login page. People can even email files directly into it. A Share Link, on the other hand, is more flexible but more fleeting. It can cover multiple folders, offer a mix of permissions like viewing or downloading, and is always accessed through the web.

When visitors use an Inbox, they can only upload. That’s the entire purpose: a clean, consistent place where files come in. A Share Link is more open-ended because sometimes you want recipients to see or take files, sometimes just to contribute, but it’s never designed to serve as a permanent dropbox.

So when choosing between Inbox or Share Link, the real question is permanence. Do you want a lasting intake point for your site, or do you want a temporary link that disappears when its purpose is served? The Inbox is the former, the Share Link the latter, and they cover both sides of how files flow into your organization.