---
title: About workspaces
description: What a workspace is, and how it uses the mailboxes, calendars and drives you connect.
---

A workspace is a shared space with its own members, its own look and its own rules for AI. You might keep one workspace for yourself and another for your team. Each workspace has the same sections in the left rail: **Inbox**, **Calendar**, **Drive** and **Workflows**, plus **Workspace AI** when your instance has AI set up.

## Your accounts belong to you

When you connect a mailbox, a calendar account or a drive, it belongs to you, the person who connected it. A workspace only uses it. You decide which of your workspaces use each one.

- **One account, many workspaces.** The same mailbox can be in several workspaces at the same time.
- **Separate settings in each workspace.** Each workspace keeps its own choices for that mailbox, calendar or drive: whether AI can read it, whether the other members can see it, and for a mailbox, whether phishing detection scans it.
- **Removing is not disconnecting.** When a mailbox leaves a workspace, it stays connected on your account and keeps working in your other workspaces.
- **What you connected leaves with you.** If you are removed from a workspace, the mailboxes, calendars and drives you connected leave that workspace too.

In these pages, a mailbox, a calendar account and a drive are together called **resources**.

## Your first workspace

Every account gets a personal workspace when it is created. It is named after you, for example "Sam Lee's workspace", or "Personal workspace" if your account has no name. You can create more workspaces at any time. See [Create a workspace](/guide/workspaces/create-a-workspace).

## Where a workspace opens

When you open a workspace, Metis Suite takes you to the inbox of its first mailbox.

- If the workspace has no mailbox, it opens the calendar instead, then the drive.
- If it has none of these, it opens a page titled "Nothing in this workspace yet", where you can add a mailbox. See [Connect your first mailbox](/guide/get-started/connect-your-first-mailbox).
- If you open a link to a workspace you cannot reach, Metis Suite takes you to one you can.

Signing in takes you to your default workspace. See [Switch between workspaces](/guide/workspaces/switch-workspaces#choose-your-default-workspace).

## Who sees what

Every member of a workspace has a role: **owner**, **admin** or **member**.

- **Members** see the mailboxes, calendars and drives they connected themselves, plus the ones marked **Shared**.
- **Owners and admins** see every mailbox, calendar and drive in the workspace, including the ones marked **Private**.

For the full list of what each role can do, see [Roles and permissions](/guide/reference/roles-and-permissions).

## The authenticator code

Some changes ask for a code from your authenticator app before they take effect, for example turning AI on for a mailbox or deleting a workspace. Type the 6-digit code from your authenticator app into the six boxes. If you do not have your authenticator, click **Use a backup code instead** and enter one of your backup codes.

- A wrong code shows "Invalid authenticator or backup code".
- Too many tries in a short time shows "Too many attempts. Please slow down." Wait a few minutes and try again.

## Names cannot be changed

You choose a workspace's name when you create it. The name and the web address made from it cannot be changed later.