One of the new features of Mango, the latest update for Windows Phone, is the ability to link inboxes together from your various mail accounts. It is a feature that has been on other platforms for a while now, most notably Apple’s iOS, and for many was a welcome new feature with the update. Setting up your Windows Phone to link inboxes is easy to do if you know where to look. That’s the purpose of this How To.
First, here is my Start Screen with my non-linked inboxes. I have one for Outlook, Gmail and Hotmail.
Original Start Screen Inboxes
To link your inboxes, open one of your accounts so you are in the Inbox of that account. Next, tap the More menu (the … at the bottom right of the screen). This will give you the menu to change the settings of the Inbox you are viewing, of which one of the settings is Link Inboxes.
Menu to Link Inboxes
Tap the Link Inboxes option and you will be brought to a screen where all of your email accounts are listed. The one that you opened is listed at the top while the bottom shows the accounts that you could link to that top account. Tap the account you want to link (in my case I’m linking my Hotmail and Gmail accounts) and that account joins the first one at the top of the screen. This is your indicator that they are linked. Below this you will see the option to rename the now linked inboxes to a more friendly name. By default it will be named Linked Inbox.
Linked Hotmail & Google Inboxes
Now if I go back to my Start screen I will see my Linked Inbox.
New Linked Inbox on Start Screen
That’s all it takes to link your inboxes in Windows Phone. If you want to unlink the inboxes just go into the inbox, tap the menu button and select unlink inboxes.
