Inbox overview

The Inbox is where every customer conversation lives, on WhatsApp and on your website, whether your agent is replying or a teammate is. Use it to watch what the agent does, pick up the conversations it hands over, and reply yourself.

​

How the Inbox is laid out

Click Inbox in the sidebar, or press ⌘ I on a Mac (Ctrl I on Windows). On a wide window you see three panes:

• The list, on the left. Its head holds the title Inbox and four buttons: Search, Filters, New conversation and More folders. Under the head are the four everyday folders, any filters you applied, and the conversations.
• The conversation, in the middle: a header with the customer, Snooze conversation, Close and More actions; the messages; and the composer, with a bar on top that says who is replying.
• Customer details, on the right. On a narrower window it opens as a side panel when you click the customer’s name in the header. See Customer details and summary.

On a phone the list and the conversation are separate screens, and Snooze conversation and Close move into More actions. With no conversation open, the middle pane reads Select a conversation.

​

Reading a row

Each row in the list shows:

• The customer’s name, or their number or WhatsApp username when you have no name, and the time of the last message: the time today, Yesterday, a weekday, or a date.
• The last message. When it came from your side it starts with the agent’s mark or the teammate’s first name, followed by delivery ticks. A message that failed shows Not delivered in red.
• A status badge, the conversation tag, and for WhatsApp the last four digits of your business number the customer wrote to.
• A blue dot and bold text while there are unread messages.

The small mark on the avatar is the channel: WhatsApp, Website widget, Template (a conversation that started with a template you sent) or API. Conversations on your test number show a Sandbox badge instead. Click the avatar to select a row for bulk assignment.

​

Folders

The Inbox opens on Needs you. The four everyday folders sit under the list’s head, and every other folder is under More folders. A folder you open from More folders shows as a chip under the everyday folders; click its × to go back to Needs you. Counts update as conversations move. More folders also lists your teammates under Teammates, each with the number of conversations they own. Pick one to see all their conversations; the list shows a Teammate chip you can remove. The list shows one row per customer: their most recent conversation. If the same customer also wrote to a second WhatsApp number of yours, that conversation gets its own row while it has had a message in the last 7 days. A search in All lists every matching conversation, older ones included.

​

Who is replying

The bar above the composer says who is replying and offers the one action that changes it. Conversations start with the agent replying whenever an agent is connected to the number. Taking over, assigning the conversation, snoozing it, or setting it aside until the customer replies pauses the agent for that conversation only, and it moves to Mine for the person who did it. See Work a conversation. Every hand-off is also written into the conversation as a line, such as Sales agent needed help from your team, Yousef assigned this conversation to Sara, Yousef handed this conversation to Sales agent, Yousef closed this conversation or Yousef reopened this conversation. Messages your team sends from the WhatsApp Business app on the same number are marked via WhatsApp app (see coexistence).

​

What sends a conversation to Needs you

Whenever the agent stops handling a conversation, it lands in Unassigned, and so in Needs you, with the agent paused. This happens when: Choose who gets told in Settings → Notifications (Unassigned messages and Handovers). See Profile and notifications. The agent’s handover, spam and retry switches are covered in Capabilities and Check replies before sending.

​

The WhatsApp 24-hour window

WhatsApp only lets a business send free-form messages within 24 hours of the customer’s last message. Popcorn shows where you stand in a line above the message box:

• WhatsApp reply window: a countdown such as “3h 20m left”. It turns amber when less than an hour is left.
• “It’s been more than 24 hours since the customer’s last message. WhatsApp only allows templates until they write again.”
• “The customer hasn’t replied yet. WhatsApp only allows templates until they write.” This shows on a conversation your business started, until the customer writes.

When the window is closed the message box is greyed out and Send template replaces Send. Pick one of your approved templates; when the customer replies, the window opens again. Notes still work. See Send a template outside the window. Website chat and API conversations have no 24-hour window. You can reply to them at any time after the customer’s first message, and until then the line reads “The customer hasn’t written yet. You can reply after their first message.” If the conversation’s WhatsApp number is disconnected, the line says “WhatsApp is disconnected, so replies can’t reach customers” and a Reconnect button opens the number’s connection. Without permission to reconnect, it tells you to ask your account owner or an admin. While Meta is checking a number, it reads “Meta is checking this WhatsApp number, so replies are paused for a few minutes.”

​

Closed and reopened

• Close, in the conversation header, moves the conversation to Closed, shows “Conversation closed”, and opens the next conversation in the list. Agents with Close resolved chats also close their own idle conversations; see Capabilities.
• Reopen, in the bar above the composer, brings it back to Unassigned, or to Agent if the agent was replying when it closed.
• A customer who writes after a conversation was closed starts a new conversation, which the agent answers. The closed one stays in Closed until you reopen it.

​

Next