Primary, All and the filters
Exactly which conversations are in the Inbox's Primary tab — every real one — and which noise leaves it for All, what the chip on a row means, how the channel and mailbox filters narrow the list, and what the counts mean.
Primary is every real conversation. Only noise leaves it. Noise is email nobody wrote to the business — newsletters, marketing and bulk mail, no-reply senders, autoresponders, out-of-office replies, bounces, and senders the mailbox's own settings exclude. Everything else, on every channel, is in Primary: the conversations the agent is handling fine and the ones that need a person, newest activity first. There is nothing to triage or mark as done. A row that needs a person says so with a chip, and the chip goes on its own the moment the reason clears.
What counts as noise #
Noise is email only. Web chat, WhatsApp and voice conversations are always with a real customer, so they are always in Primary. On email, these never reach Primary:
- Newsletters and mailing lists — mail with list headers, when Skip newsletters is on for the mailbox.
- Marketing and bulk mail — mail the sender marked as bulk.
- No-reply senders — mail from a
no-reply@ornoreply@style address. - Autoresponders and out-of-office replies.
- Bounces and delivery reports.
- Excluded senders — addresses or domains under Never answer on the mailbox, or outside Only answer these domains when that is set.
Nothing is thrown away. Noise is kept under All, where the row carries a small grey chip that names why it is there:
| Chip | What arrived |
|---|---|
| Newsletter | A mailing list or newsletter. |
| Bulk mail | Mail marked as bulk or marketing by its sender. |
| No-reply sender | Mail from an address that does not take replies. |
| Auto-reply | An autoresponder. |
| Out of office | An out-of-office reply. |
| Bounce | A delivery report: a mail of yours that could not be delivered. |
| Excluded sender | An address or domain the mailbox's Filters tab excludes. |
The agent never answers noise, and noise is not metered: it does not count against the month's conversation allowance. The mailbox's rules are set on Channels → Email, the mailbox's Filters tab; see What is never answered.
The console's own agent previews — conversations a teammate had while testing an agent in the console — are not noise, but they are not in Primary either. They sit under All with a Preview badge. See Testing.
What the chip on a row means #
A row carries a chip while a person is needed, on whichever tab you are looking at. One chip per row, the most pressing reason; a conversation the agent is handling fine has none.
| Chip | It appears when | It goes when |
|---|---|---|
| Draft waiting | The agent has written an email reply that is waiting for a person: the mailbox is on Drafts for approval, or it is on Auto-reply and a limit held the reply back. See Reviewing email drafts as a team. | Someone approves, discards or replaces the draft, or replies to the customer themselves. |
| Asked for a person | The agent handed the customer to Live support and nobody has accepted yet. | A colleague accepts (the chip becomes Needs a human), or the handoff ends. |
| Needs a human | A person has the conversation: a live-support session is open on it; or, on email, someone chose Pause agent on this thread, replied from their own mail client, or mail arrived while the thread was inside the mailbox's quiet hours after a team reply. | The session ends, someone chooses Resume AI now, or the thread's next draft or reply. |
| Held | Mail arrived and the agent could not take it: the mailbox is Off, its kill switch is on, it has no agent, the plan does not include email, the month's conversation allowance is spent, or the workspace is suspended. The operational trail says which. | A person replies from the Inbox, or the next mail gets a draft once the cause is fixed. |
| Unanswered | The customer spoke last and nothing has gone out for ten minutes — on any channel. Preview conversations never count. | Anything goes out to the customer, from the agent or from a person. |
Unanswered is the fallback: it shows only when none of the others applies, so a conversation with a draft waiting reads Draft waiting even if the customer has been waiting an hour.
The chip is information, not a filter. Primary does not shrink to the chipped rows; it is the whole list of real conversations, and the chips are how you spot the ones to open first.
A stepped-back WhatsApp conversation has no chip of its own
A WhatsApp conversation where the agent has stepped back after a reply from your team's phone or from a ticket is in Primary like every other, but carries no chip on its own. It shows Unanswered once the customer writes again and ten minutes pass, and Needs a human while a colleague's live-support session is open. The banner above the transcript still shows the stepped-back state; see When the agent has stepped back.
While a colleague has an email draft open, the right edge of the row says {name} reviewing. That is the review lock, not ownership; see Two people, one draft.
The filters #
Above the list, next to the search box, the selects narrow whatever tab is open. They combine with each other, with the tab and with the search.
| Select | Choices | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| All agents | Every agent in the workspace | Only conversations handled by that agent. |
| All channels | Web chat, WhatsApp, Voice, Email | Only conversations on that channel. |
| All mailboxes | Each connected mailbox, by address | Appears when the channel is Email. Only threads in that mailbox. The Drafts tab obeys it too, so you can clear one mailbox at a time. |
The tab and the filters are part of the page address — view=, channel=, mailbox= and agent= — so a copied link lands a colleague on the same list, and a mailbox on Channels → Email can link straight to its own threads. Changing a tab or a filter closes the open conversation, because it may not be in the new list; the first row of the new list opens instead.
When a filter leaves nothing you see No conversations match these filters.
The counts #
Each tab carries a number, and the Inbox item in the sidebar carries the Drafts one.
| Count | What it is |
|---|---|
| Primary | Every real conversation in the workspace: the All count minus noise and previews. |
| All | Every conversation in the workspace, across all four channels, noise and previews included. |
| Drafts | Email drafts waiting for approval. The same number is on the sidebar badge — 99+ past a hundred, and a dot when the sidebar is collapsed. |
The counts are for the whole workspace: the filters do not change them. They refresh every minute, and sooner when a conversation changes while you have the console open.
Troubleshooting #
| What you see | Why, and what to do |
|---|---|
| An email is under All but not in Primary | Its chip says why: a newsletter, bulk mail, a no-reply sender, an auto-reply, an out-of-office, a bounce or an excluded sender. The agent will not answer it. If it is really a customer, loosen the mailbox's Filters on Channels → Email — Never answer, Only answer these domains or Skip newsletters — and reply to this one by hand. |
| A row says Unanswered but the agent is on | Nothing went out for ten minutes after the customer's last message. On WhatsApp, look for the stepped-back banner; on a web chat, the customer may simply have written again after the agent finished. Either way, somebody should answer. |
| Held on an email conversation | The trail row under the customer's mail says why: the mailbox is Off, the kill switch is on, no agent is assigned, email is not in the plan, the allowance is spent, or the workspace is suspended. Fix it on Channels → Email or Billing, and reply to this customer by hand. |
| Primary says No conversations match these filters | Everything on the channel, agent or mailbox you picked is noise or a preview, or nothing has arrived there yet. Clear the filters, or switch to All. |
| The mailbox select is missing | It appears only when the channel is Email. |
Related #
Inbox
Reading conversations: the list, search, transcripts and the trail.
Reviewing email drafts as a team
Approve, rewrite and edit drafts without stepping on each other.
Live support
Where Asked for a person comes from, and how a colleague accepts it.
Set up email
Reply modes, limits, reviewers and what is never answered per mailbox.