# 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.

Source: https://docs.amomic.in/console/inbox-primary

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**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.

![The Inbox on its Primary tab: the views Primary, All and Drafts as a pill row under the title, the conversation list on the left where some rows carry a chip such as Asked for a person, Draft waiting, Needs a human, Held or Unanswered and others carry none, and an email thread open on the right with a draft waiting for approval](https://docs.amomic.in/screens/inbox/primary.light.webp)

*Primary is every real conversation. A chip on a row says why it needs a person; a row without one is fine.*

## 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@` or `noreply@` 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](/channels/email#what-is-never-answered).

![The Inbox on its All tab with a newsletter open on the right; in the list, a row from news@applianceworld.in carries a grey Newsletter chip and a Mail Delivery Subsystem row carries a Bounce chip, between ordinary conversations](https://docs.amomic.in/screens/inbox/all.light.webp)

*All is everything. The grey chip says why a row is not in Primary.*

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](/build/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](/console/email-drafts). | 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](/console/human-handoff) 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](/console/inbox#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.

::: note 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](/console/inbox#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](/console/email-drafts#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.

![The Inbox filter bar with All agents, the channel set to Email and a mailbox select set to support@veloriahome.in; the list shows the email conversations in that mailbox](https://docs.amomic.in/screens/inbox/filters-email.light.webp)

*The mailbox select appears only when the channel is Email.*

| 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](/channels/email#what-is-never-answered) — **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](/channels/email#mailbox-health) or [Billing](/console/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

::: cards

::: card Inbox
[Reading conversations](/console/inbox): the list, search, transcripts and the trail.
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::: card Reviewing email drafts as a team
[Approve, rewrite and edit drafts](/console/email-drafts) without stepping on each other.
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::: card Live support
[Where Asked for a person comes from](/console/human-handoff), and how a colleague accepts it.
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::: card Set up email
[Reply modes, limits, reviewers](/channels/email#pick-the-agent-and-how-it-replies) and [what is never answered](/channels/email#what-is-never-answered) per mailbox.
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