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How to Manage Unibox & Best Practices for Replying to Leads

Learn how to use Unibox to reply to the leads directly from Instantly

Unibox is your centralized inbox for managing lead replies from all your connected email accounts in one place.

Filter and Organize Replies in Unibox

Use the left sidebar in Unibox to quickly find, filter, and organize conversations.

  • Lead status: Filter replies by default or custom lead statuses. You can also add more by creating custom labels.

  • All Campaigns: view replies from a specific campaign

  • AI Sales Agents: filter conversations handled by a specific AI Sales Agent

  • All Inboxes: view replies from one or more connected sending accounts

  • More sections include additional filters:

    • Primary: Shows conversations with leads that exist in your campaigns

    • Unread only: Displays only unread conversations

    • Reminders only: Conversations with follow-up reminders

    • Scheduled emails: Emails scheduled to be sent

    • Sent: Emails sent from Instantly

    • Others: Replies from non-lead(i.e., contacts who are not in any campaigns or lists). You can disable Save non-Instantly emails in Unibox in the Preferences setting if you don’t want these emails to sync

Note: When the same lead exists in multiple campaigns within a workspace, we now match their replies to the most relevant campaign using overall conversation context, resulting in more accurate attribution.


When the system can't confidently determine the correct campaign, for example:

  • The reply is sent to a different email account than the one originally used (email forwarding overwriting previous information)

  • The subject line has been significantly changed

In these cases, we fall back to the current default behavior: match replies to the most recently contacted campaign.


Search feature in Unibox

Filter replies using the search feature in Unibox.

  • Quick Filters: Narrow your search using built-in filters such as Has attachment, Unread, Sent, Received, or Last 7 days

  • Keyword Search: Search for any keyword that exists within the message body (or subjects, senders, recipients, etc.)

  • Advanced Filtering: You can combine multiple filters simultaneously. Filter threads by from address, to address, lead email, subject, has attachment, is in unread/read/focused status, is sent or received, replies before or after a date, or campaign ID

  • Recent Searches: Your recent searches are saved for quick access, making it easy to rerun frequently used searches

Search results are automatically sorted by relevance, making it easier to find the right conversation.


Quick Actions Menu

To access the quick actions in Unibox, first select one or more conversations by checking the box next to the reply. The action bar will appear at the top of the inbox:

  • Mark as unread

  • Mark as read

  • Update lead status

  • Add to blocklist

  • Delete email


Reply to Emails in Unibox

Plan Requirements

  • Hyper Growth & Light Speed plans: Reply directly in Unibox

  • Growth plan: Preview only. You can reply from your original mailbox (Gmail, Outlook, etc.)

Steps to send or forward replies in Unibox:

  • Open the email in Unibox

  • Click "Reply" or "Forward" at the bottom

  • If CC recipients are included, click the arrow on the Reply button to select "Reply All"

  • Compose your message

  • Click "Send"


Delete Emails in Unibox

Deleting an email from Unibox only removes it from Unibox. It will still be available in your original mailbox (such as Gmail or Outlook).

Bulk Delete Emails

  • Select one or more conversations by checking the box next to each email

  • Click the Select drop-down to Select all on page, Read, Unread, or None (Optional)

  • Click the Delete (trash) icon in the action bar to remove the selected emails from Unibox

Delete Emails Individually

  • Open the conversation in Unibox

  • Click the three-dot (⋯) menu in the top-right corner

  • Choose one of the following options:

Delete Email: Deletes only the email conversation from Unibox. The lead remains in your campaigns

Delete Lead / Add to Blocklist: Removes the lead from your campaigns and gives you additional options:

  • Delete all leads with the same domain: Removes all leads from the same company domain (e.g., @company.com)

  • Delete the lead from all campaigns: Removes the selected lead from every campaign they’re enrolled in

  • Add to Blocklist: Prevents the lead from being contacted or uploaded in future campaigns and also removes the reply from Unibox


More Actions Menu

Click the three-dot (⋯) menu in the top-right corner of a conversation to access more actions for the selected lead.

  • Add Notes: Add internal notes that are only visible to your team

  • Mark as Unread: Mark the conversation as unread so you can revisit it later

  • Edit Lead: Update the lead's information, such as name, email address, or other details

  • Set Reminder: Create a reminder to follow up with the lead at a later time if no reply is received

  • Move to Subsequence: Move the lead into a subsequence within the same campaign

  • Move to Another Campaign: Transfer the lead to a different campaign within the same workspace

  • Find Similar Leads: Search for similar leads in SuperSearch


Attach Lead

When leads reply from a different email address or forward your email to a colleague, those replies land in the Others folder. Use "Attach Lead" to link them to the original lead and stop follow-ups.

How to Attach a Lead

  • Find the reply in the Others folder

  • Click the three dots (...) in the top right corner

  • Select "Attach Lead"

  • Enter the original lead's email address

    • Scroll down the email thread to see the "To:" address from your first campaign email

    • Or type the domain and select from the dropdown

  • The reply moves to Primary folder

  • Update the lead's interest status as needed


Lead details and status

Click the info icon next to the lead's email to check lead details and status:

  • Resume after: Check the resume date set by AI Smart Pause for OOO replies or manually resume the lead.

  • Step & Variant: Check which step and variant the lead received. For example, 1-A means Step 1 and Variant A.

  • Other details: Campaign name/Sequence Status/Email address/Lead owner/Lead Source/Lead Status/Last Touch

You can update the lead’s status by clicking the status in the top-right corner. If Automatically tag lead status in replies is enabled and AI misclassifies a reply, click the + and select the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon to submit feedback. This helps improve future accuracy.


Reply Suggestions in Unibox

OpenAI Reply Suggestions analyze your existing macros or recent emails to provide contextually relevant suggestions. You'll see AI-generated suggestions when replying, and can press Tab to select them.

AI Reply Agent is more advanced—it can generate draft replies for you to review (in HITL mode) or even handle responses and book meetings automatically.

After the AI reply agent generates or drafts a reply, you can click the 👍 or 👎 button to provide feedback. Your feedback helps improve future AI-generated replies and recommendations.


Best Practices for Replying to Leads

As soon as you get a reply to an initial cold email, you need to come up with a response to keep the conversation’s momentum going or schedule a call.

Here is what you should do when you get a positive response to your cold email:

  • Understand your prospect’s intentions

  • Reply as quickly as possible

  • Have a call within 24-48h, helps with show-up rates

  • Make it all about them

  • Don’t overwhelm them with too much information

  • Answer all their questions

Responding to Interested Leads

We created a guide that helps you turn interested leads into clients. Read about it here.

Respond to Every Opportunity

Before you respond to leads, you want to qualify them. If they aren’t interested, you can put the lead into the "Not Interested" folder or remove them.

Don’t leave interested people hanging in the dark; respond to every single person who contacts your business. Building relationships is key to the success of any business. Regardless of whether or not these conversations will result in conversions, you should invest time in talking with those who show an interest in your business.

Even if the lead doesn’t look as interested as you’d like when you first read the email, it can actually turn into a client. So give every opportunity a chance.


Frequently Asked Questions

If an email is marked as read or deleted, will it impact the status of the email in the mailbox?

No. Actions in Unibox (marking as read, deleting) do not currently sync back to your email provider's inbox. It's a one-way sync only.

If I delete a lead, will their future replies still appear in Unibox?

Yes. If you delete a lead from your campaign, their replies will still appear in Unibox, but in the More -> Others folder.

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