Disabling Canvas Inbox

My university uses Canvas for instructional purposes. Canvas has a functionality called “Inbox”, which allows you to send messages. I have long thought this functionality not only useless but even harmful. This is because I ignore everything sent to Canvas Inbox, but students who are not aware that I do not use Canvas Inbox may send me messages that gets ignored and may complain. Since I was not able to find information on how to disable Inbox, I contacted the university technical support.

Short Description: How to disable Canvas Inbox
Customer: Alexis Toda
Record: XXXXXXXX
Status: New
Description: Hello, I am a faculty at the economics department. I would like to disable the Canvas Inbox functionality but could not find information on the web (or only very old information). The issue is that I told students that I do not monitor Canvas Inbox and any message sent there will be ignored, but nevertheless there are students who do not pay attention and still send me messages through Canvas Inbox. This is a serious issue because it could affect my teaching evaluation.

To my great surprise, I received an answer within a few minutes:

2021-10-15 15:43:02 PDT
The Canvas inbox feature cannot be disabled by the instructor, nor Canvas administrators. To forward email notifications, please turn Canvas conversation notifications on.

So, unfortunately, I need to live with Canvas Inbox, which means I have the disclaimer “We do not monitor the Canvas Inbox; please do not use it. Any message sent there will be ignored” on my syllabus and I will keep ignoring messages sent there.