How to Shuffle Your InboxAlly Seed Emails

By Darren Blumenfeld · Updated March 6th, 2026 · Getting Started

Shuffling replaces some or all of your current seed email addresses with fresh ones from InboxAlly's pool. Your seed count and plan stay the same — you just get different addresses. Think of it like rotating tires: same setup, fresh contact points.

This article walks through how to shuffle using the InboxAlly UI and covers the key things to do after a shuffle.

Why Shuffle Your Seeds

Shuffling keeps things fresh.

Benefits of regular shuffling:

Gives you more accurate placement data — new seeds have no engagement history with your domain, so results better reflect how a real new subscriber experiences your emails
Keeps your deliverability data meaningful over time

InboxAlly recommends shuffling at least once a month. The system enforces a 30-day cooldown between shuffles to maintain seed stability.

Your last shuffle date is shown in the right sidebar of the Seed Emails page so you always know when your seeds were last refreshed.

How to Shuffle — Step by Step

In the InboxAlly sidebar, click Seed Emails.
Click the MANAGE SEED EMAILS tab (next to VIEW & DOWNLOAD).
You will see the shuffle options with two methods to choose from.

Option A: Keep Current Distribution (Recommended)

This is the best choice for most users. It replaces seeds with fresh ones while keeping your current provider mix intact — if you have 60% Gmail and 20% Yahoo now, you will still have 60% Gmail and 20% Yahoo after the shuffle.

Select Keep Current Distribution.
Use the Shuffle % slider to choose how many seeds to replace. You can do a partial shuffle (for example, 80%) or a full shuffle (100%).
Optionally, check Adjust by Email Provider if you want to tweak the shuffle percentage per provider (for example, shuffle 90% of Gmail seeds but only 50% of Gsuite seeds).
Click Keep Same Distribution & Shuffle Seed Emails.

When to use this: Most situations. Your provider distribution already matches your audience, and you just want fresh seed addresses.

Option B: Custom Distribution

This option lets you change the provider mix entirely. Use it when your audience skews toward specific providers and your current seed distribution does not match.

Select Custom Distribution.
Enter the desired percentage for each provider: Gmail, Yahoo, Gsuite, Hotmail, Outlook. The percentages must total 100%.
Optionally, check Add more seed emails if you want to increase your total seed count (may require a plan upgrade).
Click the button to execute the shuffle.

When to use this:

B2B senders: Increase Gsuite, Outlook, and MS365 percentages since business contacts are more likely on those providers.
B2C senders: Keep Gmail and Yahoo higher to match consumer email usage.
Regional senders: Adjust based on which providers your audience uses most.

Partial vs. Full Shuffle

Shuffle %	Best for
50-80% (partial)	Maintaining some continuity while refreshing most seeds. Good for ongoing monitoring where you want to compare old and new seed performance.
100% (full)	Getting completely fresh placement data with no carryover. Best when you want a clean baseline or suspect pattern detection is affecting your results.

After Shuffling — Critical Steps

After a shuffle completes, your old seed addresses are no longer active. You must update the seed list in your ESP or email platform so your campaigns go to the new addresses.

If you use a native integration (Klaviyo, HubSpot):

Seeds sync automatically. No manual update needed — InboxAlly handles it.

If you manually manage seeds in your ESP:

Go to the VIEW & DOWNLOAD tab on the Seed Emails page.
Click Copy All or Export to get your updated seed list.
In your ESP, remove the old seed contacts from your InboxAlly Seeds list.
Import the new seed addresses.
Verify that the new seeds are included in your next campaign.

For platform-specific steps, see your integration guide:

If you use the API:

Fetch your updated seed list with GET /v3/seeds and sync programmatically. See InboxAlly API: Overview and Getting Started for details.

Your historical data is preserved. Reports and placement data from old seeds remain in your account. Shuffling does not delete any past performance data.

Shuffle Timing and Best Practices

Cooldown: The system enforces a 30-day cooldown between shuffles. The Seed Emails page shows when your next shuffle is available.
Frequency: Monthly shuffles strike the right balance between fresh data and seed stability. More frequent is not possible due to the cooldown.
Start with partial shuffles if you are unsure. An 80% shuffle refreshes most of your seeds while keeping 20% for continuity.
Use full shuffles when starting a new campaign strategy, moving to a new domain, or when you want a completely clean placement baseline.

Shuffling via API

Seed shuffling is also available through the InboxAlly API for users who want to automate the process.

Key endpoints:

POST /v3/seeds/shuffle/trigger — trigger a shuffle with your chosen method (in_place, in_place_by_provider, or custom)
GET /v3/seeds/shuffle/status — check if a shuffle is allowed and when the next one is available
GET /v3/seeds/shuffle/history — view past shuffles

Common automation: Set up a monthly cron job that checks the cooldown status, triggers a shuffle, then fetches the updated seed list to sync to your ESP.

For full API details, see InboxAlly API: Overview and Getting Started.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Cause	What to do
Shuffle button is greyed out	30-day cooldown has not elapsed	Check the sidebar for your last shuffle date and wait until the cooldown expires
New seeds not receiving campaigns	ESP still has old seed addresses	Re-export seeds from VIEW & DOWNLOAD and update your ESP contact list
Inboxing data looks different after shuffle	Expected — new seeds have no engagement history with your domain	Give it 3-5 sends for the new seeds to generate meaningful data
Provider percentages do not match what I entered	Rounding — seed count may not divide evenly across providers	Small differences (1-2%) are normal due to rounding