How does changing and removing email accounts from a sequence affect it

In order to launch a sequence that includes email steps, you must connect an email account, which will serve as the sending email address for the email steps. You have the option to connect one or multiple email accounts, but one of them should be designated as the default.

When you decide to make changes in a sequence, a certain logic that allows the automatic distribution of contacts between connected email accounts in a sequence will take place. These changes may include:

change connected email accounts: remove them from a sequence, delete them from the platform, and add new email accounts;
upload new contacts to a sequence.

However, there are also cases when the automatic distribution of contacts will not work, so you need to reassign them manually.

When and how contacts will be assigned automatically

There are several scenarios where contacts can be automatically distributed once you make some changes to email accounts. Let's take a closer look at each possible case.

Action	Accompanying condition	How contacts will be assigned
You connect a new email account to a sequence.	There is no other email account connected. You have also added contacts, but they don’t have email accounts assigned yet (in this sequence). Contacts that you have added to this sequence have never had email accounts assigned before.	Contacts in the sequence will be automatically assigned to a newly connected email account.
You connect a new email account to a sequence.	There are some previously added email accounts in a sequence, and some of the contacts are assigned to them.	Nothing will change for the contacts that were previously added and assigned to particular email accounts (they will still be assigned to the same email accounts). However, if you start adding new contacts to the sequence, they will be assigned to all email accounts (including the newly added one) evenly using round-robin logic.
You upload contacts to a sequence.	There are one or a few email accounts connected.	Newly added contacts will be automatically assigned to all connected email accounts evenly using round-robin logic. It doesn't matter how many contacts were previously assigned to email accounts; all new contacts that you add to a sequence will be assigned to them evenly.

When contacts will NOT be assigned automatically

In some other cases, automatic distribution will not work, so you may need to manually assign contacts to the necessary email accounts in the People tab.

These cases may include:

when you delete an email account that is used in sequence (from a sequence or from the Reply platform) - in this case Reply won't reassign contacts to the remaining email accounts in this sequence
when you add a new email account instead of the deleted one.

In these cases, nothing will change, so you need to perform manual actions.

What happens to a sequence after removing email accounts

If you have a sequence with at least one email step but no email account connected to it, then you will face the following consequences:

All contacts in the sequence will have an "Unassigned" status, which you can check in the People tab under the Sending email column.
If you try to run the sequence, you will get an error. The sequence toggle will be orange, and there will be a notification informing you that an email account is missing to process this sequence. The sending email column will have Unassigned status.

If you have a sequence with no email steps and no email account connected to it, then:

When you open the People tab, you will see Unassigned status in the Sending email column.
If you try to run the sequence, it will start processing, and no notification on the toggle will be shown. All because there are no email steps and the absence of email accounts will not affect the sequence launch.