Manychat Inbox

Manychat Inbox is your go-to tool for communicating with customers across multiple platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS, within a single interface. Whether you're answering questions, sending payment links, or managing contact data, Inbox has you covered. This guide will help you get the most out of Manychat Inbox with easy-to-follow steps and tips.

Managing Inbox seats

An Inbox seat is required to take part in conversations. The number of seats available in your account depends on your subscription plan. You can learn more about plan options here.

⚠️ The account owner automatically occupies one Inbox seat, which cannot be transferred to another team member.

Assigning an Inbox seat

Assigning an Inbox seat allows team members to access the Inbox feature and communicate directly with contacts. Only Account Admins can manage and assign these seats to users. To do so:

1. Go to the Settings tab.
2. Switch to the Team Members section.
3. Click the Edit button near the name of the chosen team member.
4. Enable the Inbox seat toggle.

If you see the message, "You have insufficient rights to chat with the contact," this means you don’t have an Inbox seat. To fix that, ask the account owner to grant you access.

Managing and organizing conversations

Managing the high volume of incoming conversations can be challenging. To help you keep focus on what matters most, we created a system of Folders and Labels. It offers a quick-to-use and flexible high-level organization of threads. You can find both in the leftmost sidebar.

Folders

Folders organize conversations based on who they’re assigned to, making it easier for teams to manage chats together. The All chats folder is visible by default, while additional folders become available when more than one team member has an Inbox seat.

Conversations are organized into four default folders:

• All chats - the main folder with all the incoming conversations.
• Unassigned - includes chats that haven’t been assigned to anyone yet.
• Assigned to me - shows conversations assigned to you.
• Reminders - displays conversations that have an active reminder set.
• Team folders - show conversations assigned to a specific team or individual team members.

Labels

Labels allow you to segment conversations more flexibly than folders, as they aren’t tied to the assignment. In fact, you can set your own conditions for filtering or add a thread to a label manually, which makes them useful for both teams and solo users.

There are two types of labels available: preset labels are created automatically by Manychat, and custom labels that you can create yourself.

You can assign a label to the conversation by clicking the Manage Labels button in the chat window or simply dragging the thread into the label in the sidebar.

It’s also possible to assign a label automatically by setting the conditions during the label creation. 

Creating custom labels

You can create up to 20 custom labels to organize threads based on your specific needs — the exact number depends on your plan. Check the pricing page to learn more about what's available to you.

Label creation is not available on mobile: you can only view labels that were created in the desktop version of Manychat.

1. Press the + button to the right of the labels section.
2. Select the icon or leave a randomly assigned one.
3. Type the name of the label.
4. You can create an automatic label by setting up the conditions. Contacts matching the set condition will be automatically assigned a new label.
5. Once you are happy with the label, press the Create Label button.

Navigation

To the left of the chat, you will find a chat list that displays all conversations within the selected folder or label, giving you an overview of both ongoing and past interactions.

Each chat in the list shows a timestamp on the right — this is when the last message was sent by a contact or an agent. If the contact only interacted by clicking buttons in an automation and no manual messages were exchanged, the timestamp won't appear, and that conversation will be listed at the bottom.

At the top of the workspace, you’ll find a set of filters and sorting options that help you manage conversations more efficiently.

The following filters and sorting options are available:

• Chat state: Switch between Open (conversations requiring human attention), Closed (conversations marked as closed or processed by an automation), and All chats (both open and closed).
• Unread: Shows only chats with unread messages.
• Sort: Order chats from newest to oldest or oldest to newest.
• Chat channel: View conversations by channel using the drop-down menu. This option appears if your account has more than one channel connected.
• Filter: Set custom conditions to narrow down your chat list.

Working in the chat

In the center of the Inbox tab, you’ll see the selected conversation displayed as a chat. This is where you actively engage with contacts: you can reply to messages, assign the chat to a team member, add notes, or perform actions such as reopening closed conversations.

💡 Messages sent through automations are marked with an automation icon, allowing you to easily distinguish them from messages sent manually by a team member.

Each message sent manually by a team member shows their profile picture to the right. This helps distinguish between automated messages and those sent by Inbox agents. Profile pictures are only visible to Admins inside Manychat — contacts see all messages as coming from your public page.

The rightmost sidebar is dedicated to contact management. It provides detailed information about the contact, including their profile, conversation history across all connected channels, and tools for managing tags, sequences, and custom fields.

Assign conversation

To manually assign a conversation to yourself or another team member:

1. Click on the conversation.
2. In the upper-left corner of the chat section, click the Unassigned tag or the current assignee’s name.
3. Select the new assignee from the dropdown list.

💡 You can also enable Auto-Assignment in the Settings to automatically assign incoming conversations to available team members.

Set a Reminder

When incoming message volume is high, some conversations may need a delayed response. Use reminders to make sure those chats aren't overlooked.

1. Open the conversation.
2. Click the clock icon at the top of the chat window.
3. Select a time from the drop-down or set a custom date and time. 
4. If you set a custom date and time, click Set Reminder in the pop-up window to confirm.

The reminder time is visible in the chat preview in the chat list. To edit it, open the chat and click the Edit icon at the top of the chat window. To remove it, click Clear Reminder.

💡 Be mindful of the 24-hour messaging window when scheduling a reminder. Setting a reminder for more than 24 hours is possible, but you may lose the chance to engage with the contact.

Run an existing automation for a contact from chat

Send an existing automation to a contact directly from the chat.

1. Open the conversation.
2. Click the automation icon at the bottom of the chat window.
3. In the pop-up, select an active automation from the list.
4. Click Pick This Automation to apply it to the current contact.

⚠️ If Pause Automation is active for the contact, it will be automatically deactivated once you send the automation.

Pause automation

Pause all automation messages while chatting with a contact. This ensures your manual messages aren’t interrupted by automated sequences. The keywords will also not trigger during this period.

When you start replying to a contact in the chat, a 30-minute pause is automatically applied, temporarily stopping any automation messages to that contact.

💡 You'll know the pause is active when you see a pause icon near the conversation in a thread manager.

If the contact is already in an active automation, all automated messages will continue to send until the end of the flow or the nearest breakpoint (such as a Delay or Smart Delay). If a delay is triggered before or during the pause, those delayed messages will be delivered only after the pause ends.

You can adjust the duration of this pause in the Inbox Behavior section of the Settings.

Canned responses

Save time with pre-written replies for frequently asked questions. Simply type / to search and select the canned response, or click on the Canned responses icon at the bottom of the chat and select one from the list.

Once selected, the canned response is added to the chat window so you can send it to the contact. 

To create a new canned response: 

1. Click the New button in the upper-right corner of the canned responses panel.
2. In the pop-up window that opens, type a name for the canned response under Shortcut.
3. Next, type the response itself in the Full Message box.
4. If you want this response to be available to your teammates as well, check the box next to Share with other users.
5. Click Create.

To edit or delete a canned response, click Manage, which will open the Settings window. You can also manage your canned responses in the Inbox Behavior section of the Settings tab.

Click the pencil icon to edit the canned response. Click the trash icon to delete it.

Scheduled Messages

You can schedule messages on Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp by clicking the Schedule message for later button. Note that the button is only active after you've typed your message in the chat dialogue. 

When you click the button, a pop-up window opens where you can edit the message and select the date and time for it to be sent. Once you’re done, click the Schedule Message button.

Still, the following conditions should be met:

• The last interaction with the contact was less than 24 hours ago.
• The scheduled time falls within the 7-day window for Messenger and Instagram. For WhatsApp, you can only schedule a message within 24 hours of the last interaction.
• The conversation is assigned to you in the Inbox.

Notes

Add notes to conversations to keep track of important details or reminders. 

Switch to the Note tab at the bottom of the chat, type your note, and click Add Note to post it. Use @ to mention a team member or yourself if you're the sole admin to get notified.

All notes added to a conversation are displayed in the contact’s panel. To view a note in context, simply click on it, and it will take you to the exact point in the conversation where it was added.

Product catalog

Send product links directly in the chat for a seamless shopping experience. Learn more about selling products via Inbox in this article. 

💡 Note: It requires a Manychat Pro plan with Stripe or PayPal integration.

Closing and reopening the conversation

Every conversation in your Inbox can be either Open or Closed. This is a quick and easy way to distinguish between chats where all work is already done and those that require a reply.

You can close the thread manually by clicking the Mark as Closed icon at the top of the open conversation chat window.

To reopen a closed conversation, click the Reopen button at the top of the chat window.

Inbox behavior

Admins and Editors can select how Inbox handles new conversations:

1. Go to the Settings tab.
2. Open the Inbox Behavior section.
3. Choose between:
   • Any message starts a conversation: New messages automatically appear in the Unassigned folder.
   • Conversation should be opened explicitly: New messages remain in the Closed folder until they’re manually marked as Open.

Personas

Enable Personas to display the agent’s name and profile picture during Messenger chats, creating a more personalized customer experience. You can turn this feature on in the Messenger section of Settings by checking the box next to Show team member name and profile picture. 

Inbox automation actions

In addition to marking conversations as Open or Closed, you can use special Inbox actions within your automations to manage how conversations are handled.

To get notified about new messages, add a Notify Assignees action to your automation.

If you want to automatically assign a chat to a specific team member, use the Assign Conversation action.

Inbox in the mobile app

The Manychat mobile app gives you full access to the Inbox on the go. You can chat with contacts, assign conversations, add notes, and manage contact details, including Tags, Sequences, and Custom Fields, all from your mobile device.