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An email inbox connects a club’s real email address (for example hello@yourclub.com) to the 1Club Inbox so that messages members send to that address show up as inbound conversations your staff can read and reply to in one place. You set it up once, and members keep writing to the address they already know. You forward mail from your provider to a 1Club forwarding address, verify the inbox once, and from then on every inbound email threads into the Inbox alongside your outbound messages.

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When to use it

Add an inbox when members email your gym and you want those emails next to the rest of their conversation history, instead of in a separate mailbox only one person checks. Each inbound email is matched to a contact and threaded onto the conversation it replies to. Typical uses:
  • Replies to booking confirmations - a padel gym’s members reply “can I move my court to 7pm?” to their confirmation, and the front desk answers from the Inbox, threaded under the original message.
  • One address per location - a gym chain with three locations adds an inbox for each, so every email is attributed to the right location automatically.
  • Catching first-time enquiries - a martial-arts school forwards its shared info@ mailbox, and prospective students who write in are created as contacts so they can be followed up.
See Worked examples for how to set up each of these. Sending email from your own domain is a separate setup, covered in Email sending.
You don’t need an inbox for members’ replies to messages you send from 1Club. Those carry their own reply address and land in the Inbox on their own (see Replies to your messages). An inbox is for the mail members send to your gym’s address themselves.

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Adding a club inbox

Inboxes live under Settings > Communication > Email Inboxes. Adding one takes three moves: create the inbox, forward your provider’s mail to the address 1Club gives you, then verify.
  1. Click Add Inbox in the top right.
  2. Choose the Club this inbox belongs to.
  3. Enter the Email address members already write to (for example frontdesk@yourclub.com). This is the address you own and want to capture mail from.
  4. Click Add. 1Club creates the inbox and shows a green Inbox created successfully! panel containing the forwarding address to use in the next step.
The forwarding address is generated for you in the form {organization-slug}_{club-slug}@inbox.1club.ai. Copy it with the copy button - you will paste it into your email provider.
The email address you enter cannot be changed after the inbox is created (the field is read-only when editing). If you typed it wrong, delete the inbox and add a new one.

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Set up forwarding at your provider

In your email provider (Gmail, Outlook, or similar), set the club address to forward incoming mail to the 1Club forwarding address you just copied. The in-app setup instructions summarize the same three steps:
  1. Create an inbox with your email address.
  2. Copy the forwarding address and set up forwarding to it in your email provider (Gmail, Outlook, etc.).
  3. 1Club sends a verification email to your address. Once forwarding works, it reaches 1Club by itself and the inbox turns Verified. You can also click its link.
Gmail won’t forward until you confirm the forwarding address, and it sends that confirmation to the forwarding address itself. While an inbox is being set up (in its first week, or after Resend Verification), 1Club emails your gym’s address Gmail’s confirmation link and code, so you can finish in Gmail’s forwarding settings.Microsoft 365 blocks automatic forwarding to outside addresses by default. Your administrator may need to allow it in the outbound spam policy before mail reaches 1Club.

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Domain verification

There are two distinct “verifications” in play. Keep them separate:
  • Inbox verification activates inbound capture for one inbox. It is a single click on a link 1Club emails to the address you entered. Covered below.
  • Sending-domain verification lets 1Club send outbound email and replies from your own domain. It is a DNS setup under Settings > Organization > Domains, covered in full in Email sending.

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Verify the inbox (activate inbound capture)

When you create an inbox (or resend verification), 1Club emails a verification message to the address you entered. It shows the forwarding address to set up. Either of two things marks the inbox Verified and activates inbound capture:
  • The email comes back through your forwarding. Once forwarding works, the verification email reaches 1Club by itself. This also proves forwarding is set up correctly, so it’s the better check.
  • You click its link.
Notes:
  • The link is valid for 7 days. If it lapses, use Resend Verification to get a fresh one.
  • Resend Verification doubles as a forwarding test: if forwarding works, the new email verifies the inbox on its own.
  • Until an inbox is verified, inbound mail to its forwarding address is dropped - the webhook only accepts mail for a verified inbox.
  • An unverified inbox shows an Unverified status chip (amber). A verified inbox shows Verified (green).
To resend: open the inbox row’s actions menu and choose Resend Verification, or open the inbox and click Resend Verification in its status panel. Confirm the prompt and a new link is sent to the inbox address. Verifying the domain your club emails come from means outbound messages and replies leave as you@yourclub.com instead of a platform address, which improves deliverability and trust. Without it, 1Club still sends, but falls back to the platform sending address and sets your club address as reply-to. The full procedure - DNS records, which address becomes the From, and how the organization and club Email fields interact - lives in Email sending.
The inbox forwarding address always uses the platform’s inbox.1club.ai domain and does not require any DNS setup from you. Sending-domain verification only affects outbound mail, not inbound capture.

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How inbound email threads into the Inbox

When a member emails your club address and your provider forwards it to the 1Club forwarding address, 1Club receives it through a SendGrid Inbound Parse webhook and does the following:
  1. Finds the inbox by the address the email was actually delivered to (your forwarding address), not by its To: line, which a forward leaves as your gym’s own address. If no verified inbox matches, the mail is ignored.
  2. Skips mail that isn’t a member writing in: out-of-office auto-replies, mail from your gym’s own sending address, mail from your staff’s sign-in addresses (an internal note to the shared mailbox, for example), and an email it has already filed.
  3. Resolves the sender by email. If no contact exists yet, a new contact is created from the sender’s name and email. An existing contact keeps the name you gave them.
  4. Creates an inbound message with direction: inbound, tagged to the inbox, storing the original club address as the recipient.
  5. Threads replies when the incoming mail carries In-Reply-To / References headers that match an earlier email, or when the subject is a Re: of the same sender’s earlier email. Otherwise it starts a new conversation.
Staff are alerted about new inbound messages according to their Notifications settings. The result appears in the Inbox as an inbound conversation you can open and reply to. Replies you send from the Inbox go out from the inbox’s own address; see Email sending for how that address is chosen and when it needs a verified domain.
Inbound messages are attributed to a staff user internally (the owner, or the earliest-added admin, manager, front-desk, or instructor). This is a system detail; in the Inbox the conversation is shown against the member contact who wrote in.

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Viewing captured messages

The inbox list shows a Messages count per inbox. Day-to-day, you read and answer captured mail in the Inbox rather than on this settings page - this page is for setting inboxes up and checking their status.

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Worked examples

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Padel club front desk

Your racket-sports club publishes bookings@acepadel.com on its website and members reply to booking confirmations there.
  • Add an inbox for the Ace Padel club with email bookings@acepadel.com.
  • Forward bookings@acepadel.com to the generated acepadel_downtown@inbox.1club.ai.
  • Verify the inbox. Now a member replying “can I move my court to 7pm?” lands in the Inbox threaded under the original confirmation, and the front desk answers without leaving 1Club.

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Multi-location gym chain

Your fitness organization runs three clubs, each with its own address.
  • Add one inbox per club (northside@, harbor@, airport@), each scoped to its club.
  • Each gets its own forwarding address, so mail is attributed to the right location automatically.
  • Verify your yourgym.com sending domain once under Settings > Organization > Domains so replies from every club go out branded.

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Martial-arts school with one shared mailbox

Your jiu-jitsu and muay-thai academy runs everything through info@northgatemma.com.
  • Add a single inbox for the academy’s club with that address.
  • Forward info@ to the forwarding address and verify.
  • New senders who aren’t members yet are auto-created as contacts, so first-time enquiries from prospective students still land in the Inbox and can be followed up.

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Tips & best practices

  • Verify before you rely on it. Inbound mail is silently dropped for unverified inboxes. Let the verification email come back through your forwarding rather than clicking its link, and the Verified chip proves forwarding works. Then send a test email to the club address from an outside account and confirm it appears in the Inbox.
  • One inbox per real mailbox. Don’t point two clubs’ forwarding at the same source address; capture is keyed on the forwarding address per club.
  • Pair inbox capture with a verified sending domain. Members reading a reply from your own domain trust it more, and deliverability is better. See Email sending.
  • Keep the club address stable. Because the address can’t be edited, choose the mailbox you intend to keep before creating the inbox.

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Troubleshooting

Issue: Emails sent to the club address don’t appear in the Inbox. Cause / fix: The inbox is not verified, or forwarding isn’t actually enabled at your provider. Confirm the status chip reads Verified; if not, use Resend Verification and click the link. Then re-check that your provider is forwarding to the exact ..._...@inbox.1club.ai address (copy it again to be sure). Issue: The verification link says it is invalid or expired. Cause / fix: Verification links last 7 days. Open the inbox and click Resend Verification (or use the row action) to send a fresh one. If forwarding already works, the new email verifies the inbox without a click. Issue: Gmail won’t enable forwarding until I confirm a code sent to the forwarding address. Cause / fix: While the inbox is being set up, 1Club emails your gym’s address Gmail’s confirmation link and code. If it’s more than a week since you added the inbox, click Resend Verification first, then turn forwarding on in Gmail again. Issue: Mail stops at Microsoft 365 with a “forwarding is disabled” bounce. Cause / fix: Microsoft 365 blocks automatic forwarding to external addresses by default. Ask your administrator to allow it for this mailbox in the outbound spam filter policy. Issue: Replies I send from the Inbox come from a platform address, not my club’s. Cause / fix: Your sending domain isn’t verified. Add it under Settings > Organization > Domains with purpose Email (SendGrid), add the DNS records, and click Verify. Until the domain is verified, your club address is used as reply-to only. See Email sending. Issue: An inbound email created a duplicate-looking contact. Cause / fix: The sender wrote from an email 1Club hadn’t seen, so a new contact was created. Merge or update the contact from the member’s profile if it duplicates an existing record with a different address.
  • Email sending - The outbound counterpart: sending domain and the From address members see.
  • Inbox - Where captured inbound mail lands and where you reply.
  • Notifications - Route new-message alerts to the right staff.
  • Message templates - Reusable content for replies and sends.
  • Integrations - Other external connections for your organization.