These terms often get used interchangeably, but they serve distinct purposes in email systems. Please review the breakdown below and select the appropriate service request. You can select the Icons to move directly to those pages. After reviewing the below information, Select Create Service Request to submit a ticket to ITS.
📬 Listserve
- Purpose: Designed for group discussions via email.
- Functionality: Members can send messages to the list, and everyone subscribed receives it.
- Common Use: Academic groups, clubs, or communities where all members participate.
- Example: A university department listserve where faculty and students share announcements or discussions.
🧠Alias/Distribution List
- Purpose: A simple forwarding address.
- Functionality: An alias redirects email to one or more actual email accounts. It doesn’t have its own inbox.
- Common Use: Masking long or complex email addresses, or creating role-based addresses.
- Example:
support@company.com might forward to jane@company.com and bob@company.com.
📤 Shared Inbox
- Purpose: To allow multiple users to access the same email inbox.
- Functionality: A message is received in the inbox. Any users with access can respond, delete, move and take any other action. The changes will reflect for all users.
- Common Use: Allow for organization of incoming messages so multiple users do not respond to the same email.
- Example: Call center receives 3 incoming emails. Email 1 is responded to by Jane. Alice can now see that Email 1 was responded to so then moves on to respond to email 2.
Summary Table
| Feature |
Listserve |
Alias |
Shared Inbox |
| Can Receive Replies |
Yes(All Members) |
No (Just forwarding) |
Yes |
| Has its own Inbox |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
| Who Can Send |
All members of list |
Anyone can send to the Alias |
User Based Access |
| General Purpose |
Group Discussions |
Address Masking |
Share incoming emails between users |