Gmail delegate access lets another person open your mailbox from their own Google account and read, send and delete mail in it, with no shared password. A Google Workspace admin turns it on for the organization, the mailbox owner adds the delegates, and each delegate switches to the mailbox from the account menu in Gmail.
This guide covers how delegation works, how to grant it, the limits Google documents, and the point where a team needs something else. Every step and number is from Google's help pages, checked in October 2026. We build Sektra, a shared inbox tool for Gmail and Outlook, and it appears once near the end.
In the mailbox you want to share, open Settings, See all settings, Accounts and Import, and under Grant access to your account click Add another account. Personal accounts allow 10 delegates, Workspace accounts 1,000, with 40 using it at once. Delegates read, send and delete; they cannot chat as the account or change its password. Teams outgrow it when they need to know who owns each thread.
How does Gmail delegate access work?
The mailbox owner sends an invitation. The delegate accepts it from the email within a week, and Google says it can take up to 24 hours before the account appears for them. From then on the delegate opens Gmail as themselves and picks the delegated mailbox from the account menu. They never see its password.
Google's admin help describes the result in one sentence: in Gmail, delegated accounts and shared inboxes are the same. It also explains why an alias will not do the same job. An alias can be assigned to one user only. For a sales@ or hello@ address that several people answer, Google points to delegation, or to a Google Group.
Delegates get the mailbox as it is. The same inbox, the same labels, the same read state. When one delegate opens a message it is read for everyone, because there is only one mailbox underneath.
How to grant delegate access in Gmail
First, the admin setting in Google Workspace
- In the Admin console, go to Apps, Google Workspace, Gmail, then User settings.
- Click Mail delegation and check Let users delegate access to their mailbox to other users in the domain.
- Under sender information, choose Show the account owner and the delegate who sent the email, or Show the account owner only. A further box, Allow users to customize this setting, lets each user choose.
- Click Save. Google says changes can take up to 24 hours, though they are usually faster.
Then, the mailbox owner adds delegates
- Open Gmail on a computer, signed in as the mailbox to share. Delegates cannot be added from the Gmail app.
- Click Settings, then See all settings, then the Accounts and Import tab (or Accounts).
- In the Grant access to your account section, click Add another account.
- Enter the delegate's email address, click Next Step, then Send email to grant access. Google may ask you to verify your identity first.
- The delegate opens the invitation and clicks the confirmation link. The invitation expires after a week.
Or add a Google Group as the delegate
A Workspace owner can enter a Google Group's address instead of a person's. The group counts as one delegate, and every member gets access. Members who sit in an organizational unit where delegation is turned off cannot use it, so check the OU before you rely on this.
The limits of Gmail delegation
- Number of delegates. Personal Gmail accounts allow up to 10. Workspace accounts allow up to 1,000, and Google recommends no more than 40 using the account at the same time. Heavy use, or automated processes such as APIs and browser extensions, lowers that number.
- What a delegate cannot do. Chat as the account, change its password, or open its Google Account settings. Chat in Gmail, Gemini in Gmail, Smart Compose and Smart Reply are unavailable in the delegated view, and the search bar has no autocomplete.
- The sent line. When a delegate sends from a personal account, their address appears on the message. In Workspace the admin chooses: the account owner and the delegate, or the owner only. With the second option, nobody can tell from the message who answered.
- Same organization only. Workspace users can delegate to people in the same organization, whatever their domain or OU.
- No extra sending capacity. Google states that delegation does not increase the limits for a Gmail account. A Workspace account sends up to 2,000 messages a day, and five delegates share that one allowance.
- Delay. Up to 24 hours before a new delegate can use the account.
Where teams outgrow delegation
Delegation is designed for one owner and a few helpers, an assistant covering an executive's mail. Teams use it for a shared address because it is there, and it holds up to about three people. Then the gaps appear.
- No assignment. A message is read or unread. Nothing says who is handling it, so two people reply or nobody does.
- No state. There is no waiting on the client, no done. Teams invent label conventions, and conventions drift.
- No notes. Context for a colleague goes in a forward, which leaves the shared mailbox and splits the record.
- No sign that someone is already replying. Two delegates can draft answers to the same client at the same time.
- No identity on sent mail if the admin chose Show the account owner only. Three months later nobody knows who told the client what.
- No reporting. Nothing counts open threads, response times or load per person.
A common path: two founders share hello@ by delegation. The third hire gets access, then the fourth. One week a client gets two answers four minutes apart, and the search for something better starts. The two next steps are a Google Group with Collaborative Inbox, which adds assignment at no cost, or a shared inbox tool. The Google Workspace shared inbox guide compares the routes.
Delegation, Collaborative Inbox and a shared inbox tool side by side
| Gmail delegation | Collaborative Inbox | Shared inbox tool | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Owner invites each delegate; admin allows it | Group owner turns on the feature | Connect the mailbox through Google sign-in |
| Where the team works | Gmail | groups.google.com | The tool, with Gmail synced underneath |
| Assignment | No | By hand | By hand or by rule |
| Internal notes | No | In the assignment email only | On the thread |
| Typing indicator | No | No | Yes |
| Who replied | Admin setting decides | Members who open the group | Always recorded |
| Reporting | No | No | Per teammate and client |
| Sending allowance | One account's limit shared | Each member's own account | Each connected account's own limit |
We build Sektra, and it takes the third column. Connect the Gmail account that receives the mail through Google sign-in, so Sektra never sees the password. Every teammate gets their own seat in a separate workspace that syncs two-way with Gmail. Threads are assigned by rule, carry notes the client never sees, and show A teammate is typing a reply when two people arrive at once. Analytics report who answered and how fast.
Gmelius lists an Email Delegation feature in the Gmail interface, and Hiver and Keeping add a helpdesk there through Chrome extensions. None of them keeps a record of what each client was promised once the thread is archived.
Sektra does, in the memory layer, a record per client of commitments, open questions and people. The Gmail integration page lists what syncs, and Sektra vs Gmelius sets the two side by side. The product page has the rest.
