How to remove a channel or delete an inbox
Overview
When managing shared or individual inboxes, you may need to delete inboxes or remove channels. Let's first review the difference between the two:
Inbox
An inbox is an organizational structure that can house one or more channels. They’re your way of deciding who on your team should handle various inbound messages.
When you delete an inbox:
- All existing conversation history within the inbox will be deleted and cannot be restored.
- Any channels routing to the inbox will be removed.
- This action will not delete emails in your Office 365/Gmail account.
Channel
A channel is a way that a customer reaches out to you- which could be email address, SMS number, Instagram account, etc. Messages from these channels are routed into inboxes. You can have multiple channels and channel types within one inbox.
When you remove a channel:
- All existing conversation history will remain in the inbox.
- The connection between Front and your channel will be removed. Future messages will not appear in the Front inbox.
- All drafts associated with the channel will be removed.
- The channel will be removed from the Channel access section in signature preferences. See here for instructions on reselecting channels for signatures.
- Personal preference selections for the channel such as Default channel and Default video conference will be reset.
Remove a channel
When you remove a channel, the history will remain in the inbox but the connection will be removed. If you want to delete all the conversations in the inbox instead, see section below on deleting inboxes.
Instructions
Follow the steps below if your Front account was created after Apr 17, 2023 (your settings sidebar has both an Inboxes and Channels section).
Step 1
Click the gear icon on the top right of Front and into the Company or Personal settings tab, depending on which space you are working with.
Step 2
Click the Channels section in the sidebar, then select the channel you’d like to remove.
Step 3
Click Delete channel at the top of the page.
Step 4
Click Remove this channel in the pop-up to confirm you'd like to delete the channel. Note: while removing a channel will not delete your inbox history, when you remove a channel you will lose any drafts associated with the channel.
Step 5
You’ll be taken back to the list of channels when the channel has been removed.
Instructions [legacy]
Follow the steps below if your Front account was created before Apr 17, 2023 (your settings sidebar has an Inboxes section and does not have a Channels section).
Step 1
Click the gear icon on the top right of Front and into the Company or Personal settings tab, depending on which space you are working with. Admins can also access user settings by following these steps.
Step 2
Click into the Inboxes section and on the inbox containing the channel you want to remove.
Step 3
Click on the Channels section and click on the channel to open its settings menu.
Step 4
Click Delete channel at the top of the page.
Step 5
Click Remove this channel in the pop-up to confirm you'd like to delete the channel. Note: while removing a channel will not delete your inbox history, when you remove a channel you will lose any drafts associated with the channel.
Step 6 (optional)
You will land back in the inbox settings. If you'd like, you can add a channel back into the inbox any time by going to the Channels settings for the inbox. Select a channel type and follow the prompts to add a new channel to the existing inbox.
Note: When you add a channel back to the inbox, the signature preferences for that channel will not be restored. See here for instructions on setting up a default signature for a channel.
Delete an inbox
When you delete an inbox, all the history within the inbox will be deleted and cannot be restored. If you do want to retain your conversation history but no longer get new emails into the inbox, see the section above on removing channels.
Step 1
Click the gear icon on the top right of Front and into the Company or Personal settings tab, depending on which space you are working with. Admins can also access user settings by following these steps.
Step 2
Click into the Inboxes section and on the inbox you want to delete.
Step 3
Click Delete inbox at the top of the page.
Step 4
You will see a confirmation screen telling you that all conversations in the inbox will be deleted forever and it cannot be undone. Type the name of this inbox then click Delete to confirm.
FAQ
Are there any channels I should not remove and re-add?
We do not recommend removing and re-adding the following channels:
Removing and re-adding these channels will prevent you from replying to messages that existed before the deletion.