# How does the Inbox work? (replies, categories and answering leads)

> Outreach > Inbox shows replies from every connected mailbox in one place. Replies to your campaigns are sorted into Interested, Not relevant and Spam.

Source: https://warmerly.com/docs/help/inbox

Open **Inbox** in the sidebar (under **Outreach**). It gathers the mail from every mailbox in your workspace, and your LinkedIn conversations, into one list of conversations with the newest first. Replies to your campaigns are sorted for you, and you can answer without leaving the page. The default view is **Needs reply**.

## Views, search and filters

Along the top:

- **Search all mail** matches a contact's name, email, phone or company, and the words in their messages. Partial words work, so "invo" finds "invoice".
- **Needs reply** shows conversations whose newest message is from them and that are classed as a lead. **All** shows every conversation. The count on the right reads "N conversations".
- **Filters** opens a small panel: **Project** and **Account** (only shown if you have more than one), **Channel** (All, Email, LinkedIn), **Category** (All, Interested, Not relevant, Spam) and **Unread only**. A number on the button shows how many filters are on, and **Clear** removes them.

Above the list, the **Refresh** button fetches new mail now, and the three-dot **Inbox actions** menu has **Select conversations**, **Mark N listed read** and **View archived**. A bar reading "New activity, refresh list" appears when something arrives while you are looking. Archive a conversation with the archive icon on its row (or select several and choose **Archive selected**). Archived conversations are under **View archived** (the menu item then reads **Back to inbox**), where the bulk button reads **Unarchive selected**.

## Which mail appears

- **Warmup mail is never shown.** It is filtered out of every view.
- **Automatic senders are hidden** too: mailer-daemon, postmaster, no-reply and notifications addresses, and LinkedIn notification emails.
- New mail is read from your mailboxes roughly every five minutes. Use **Refresh** if you cannot wait. See [Replies are not showing in the inbox](https://warmerly.com/docs/troubleshooting#replies-are-not-showing-in-the-inbox).
- Both the Inbox and Sent folders are read, so mail you send from your own email app appears too. Emails sent by campaigns and warmup are not copied into a mailbox's Sent folder, so they do not appear in other email apps. Emails you send from Warmerly's own Inbox do show in the conversation.
- A mailbox that needs reconnecting stops syncing. See [Why did my mailbox disconnect?](https://warmerly.com/docs/help/reconnect-mailbox).

## Categories

Each conversation shows a small badge. Click it to change it: **Mark as Lead**, **Mark as Not Relevant** or **Mark as Spam**. Your choice moves the conversation into or out of **Needs reply** straight away, and it is kept.

| Badge | Filter name | Meaning |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lead (the list row says **Interested**) | Interested | A real person replying with interest, a question or engagement about your outreach |
| Not Relevant | Not relevant | Out-of-office and auto-replies, receipts and confirmations, or unrelated replies |
| Spam | Spam | Mail in the mailbox's spam folder |
| Unclassified | none | Not graded |

How a category is chosen:

1. Simple rules first: the spam folder, bounce and mailer-daemon mail, mail carrying an unsubscribe header, out-of-office subjects, and Warmerly's own emails to you.
2. An AI check next, for the **Inbox folder only**. A reply from a lead in one of your campaigns always goes to it. Other mail goes to it only if it arrived within the last three days when it was synced, and newsletters and other bulk mail are sorted by their headers instead. The AI sees the sender, the subject, the first 400 characters of the message and some context: the campaign name, the lead's status and the last campaign email you sent that person (or your project description). Mail you send is stored but not graded, and older mail brought in when you first connect a mailbox is not graded.
3. Anything else stays **Unclassified**. It still shows under **All**, but it is not in **Needs reply** until you mark it as a Lead.

A reply that arrives from a different address than the one you emailed is not graded by the AI. Mark it yourself if it matters.

Each conversation may also show the name of the campaign it came from.

## Replying

Click a conversation to read the thread, then write in the box at the bottom.

1. Choose **Reply via Email or LinkedIn** if this person has more than one channel.
2. For email, replies always send from the mailbox the thread started with. Its address is shown in the corner. You cannot pick another for that thread.
3. Click **Edit subject** if you want to change the subject.
4. Write your reply and click **Send** (or press Ctrl+Enter, or Command+Enter on a Mac).

Your mailbox signature and the quoted message are added for you. Common send errors are shown in plain words, for example that the contact has no email address or the subject is missing.

**Draft with AI** (or **Rewrite with AI** if you have already typed something) appears on conversations classed as a lead. It writes a short, plain-text reply of under 120 words in your name, using the sender's name, the subject, the first 800 characters of their message and the same campaign context. Read it and edit it before you send. The conversation may already have an autosaved draft waiting when you open it. If a draft cannot be generated, try again in a moment.

To start a new conversation, click **Compose** at the top right, choose the account to send **From**, and fill in **To**, **Subject** and **Message** (Cc is available).

Images in received emails are blocked, so the sender cannot tell you opened it.

## Being told about new leads

When the AI classes new replies as leads, you get an email, "You have new leads to reply to", with a button to open the Inbox. At most one such email is sent in 24 hours, and it lists the leads found since the last one. You can switch these emails off with the link in the email or under **Settings > Email preferences**.

## What the Inbox cannot do

- It does not show warmup traffic, ever.
- It does not grade mail from people who are not in your campaigns, so unrelated correspondence is Unclassified.
- You cannot change the sending mailbox on an existing thread.
- A campaign lead's status changes when their reply is detected arriving, not when you answer. That is what stops the sequence, if **Stop on reply** is on. See [What stops a campaign sequence for a lead?](https://warmerly.com/docs/help/what-stops-a-sequence).

## Common problems

**A reply I expect is not here.** Check the mailbox is connected, click **Refresh**, and check the view and filters. Under **Needs reply** you only see conversations classed as a lead. Switch to **All**.

**A reply is in the wrong category.** Click its badge and change it.

**I cannot send.** Read the message under the reply box. The usual causes are a disconnected account or a missing subject.

## Related

- [Campaign audience and the lead conversation view](https://warmerly.com/docs/help/campaign-audience)
- [Inbox API](https://warmerly.com/docs/inbox)
- [Troubleshooting](https://warmerly.com/docs/troubleshooting)

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