Getting started — Sandwich Family Inbox

1. Sign in at app.joinsandwich.com

Open app.joinsandwich.com. Sign in with your existing Google account or create a Sandwich account with your email. This is your account — the family member running point on a parent's care.

2. Set up your Loved One's Family Inbox

If you don't have a workspace yet, you'll land on the onboarding page titled “Set up your Loved One's Family Inbox.” Fill in three things:

Family name — what you want the shared workspace to be called, e.g. The Smith Family. You can change this later.
Loved one's first and last name — your parent's legal name. We derive their inbox address from this.
Date of birth (optional) — useful for medical context, never required.

Hit Create Family Inbox. The system allocates a private inbox address and lands you on the inbox itself.

3. Note your parent's inbox address

The address looks like helen-smith-AB12@lovedone.app. The format is {first}-{last}-{4 characters}. The 4 characters are letters and digits, no I / O / 0 / 1, so it's easy to dictate aloud (“A-B-1-2”).

This address is permanent. Providers may keep it on file for years. If you ever need a fresh one (e.g. a compromised address), you can rotate it from settings; the old address forwards for 90 days, then stops.

4. Give the address to your parent's providers

Every doctor, pharmacy, insurer, attorney, and care agency has an “alternate contact email” or “additional contact” field. Put the lovedone.app address there. Three easy ways to do it:

At the next visit — hand the front desk a note with the address. Most intake forms have a slot for it.
Through the patient portal — log into the provider's portal, find “Communication preferences,” add the address.
By email — write to the office once: “Please add this address as my parent's family contact email.”

You don't need to replace your parent's personal email. Most families leave it in place and add the Family Inbox as a second contact (“Option A”). Mom keeps her own inbox unchanged. The family also sees what arrives.

5. Invite your siblings (and your parent, if they want in)

On the dashboard, find the Family members & roles card. Click + Invite member, enter the person's name, email, relationship (“daughter,” “son,” “spouse”), and a role:

owner

You. The person who created the workspace. Owners can pause, resume, and remove other members. There is exactly one owner per workspace.

coordinator

Active siblings who help manage care. Can read messages, mark them, and (soon) reply. Cannot manage other members.

viewer

Read-only. Good for a more distant relative or your spouse who should stay in the loop without needing to act on anything.

They get an email with an Accept invite button. Clicking it signs them in and adds them to the workspace. If they ignore the email and just sign in directly with the same address, they're still auto-added.

Multiple loved ones, one workspace. Adding Dad later? Use + Add loved one from the dashboard. Both Mom's and Dad's inboxes show up as separate cards under one family workspace, and every invited sibling sees both.

6. Read messages as they arrive

When a provider emails the address, the message shows up in the Inbox for that loved one. Each message has:

Filter pills at the top — all, unread, starred, archived.
Read indicators — a blue dot until you open it.
Star and archive buttons on each message.
Attachments — PDFs and images attached to the email are saved and openable. Click Open to download via a short-lived signed link.
Sender domain badges — at a glance, was this from a pharmacy, insurer, or clinic?

7. Manage your team as life changes

From the dashboard, an owner can Pause a member temporarily (revokes access but keeps history — sign-in shows them no workspace), Resume them later, or Remove them permanently. The owner row cannot be paused or removed; the workspace always has exactly one owner.

That's it. You now have a working Family Inbox with the right people in it. Open app.joinsandwich.com to begin, or read the full Family Inbox docs for the design rationale.