Inbox
Read and answer your customers by chat, email and text, clear threads with the keyboard, set reminders, schedule email, and send custom offers.
The Inbox holds your threads with contacts. Each contact has one chat thread and one text thread, and every email conversation is a thread of its own. You work down the list, answer, and mark each thread Done until nothing is left waiting on you.
Open Inbox from the sidebar. The number next to it counts open threads with unread messages.
Threads and channels
| Channel | When you can use it | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Chat | The contact has a Lahuta account. | Customers can write to you with Message seller on one of your service pages or on an order from you. Replies show up in their Lahuta messages. |
| The contact has an email address. | You send from your organization's Lahuta address or a mailbox you've connected. Replies only reach the Inbox from a connected mailbox with Bring replies into the inbox turned on. See Email settings. | |
| Text | Your organization has a texting number and the contact has a phone number. | A text to your number from someone you don't know creates a new contact, named by their number. See Text messaging. |
Each channel keeps its own thread, so marking a chat Done leaves the same contact's email threads where they are.
A connected mailbox only brings in email from people who are already your contacts, so newsletters and other mail don't fill your Inbox. Email you send from the mailbox itself, outside Lahuta, shows in the thread too.
Texts your website sends through the Org API show in the contact's text thread, sent by your organization, and their replies arrive in the same thread.
Find a thread
The menu beside the Inbox heading picks which list you see. It shows how many threads each list holds, except Done, which keeps growing.
| List | What it shows |
|---|---|
| All | Every open thread, whatever the channel. |
| Chat | Open chat threads. |
| Open email threads. | |
| Text | Open text threads. |
| Reminders | Threads you set aside until a reminder brings them back. |
| Done | Threads you've finished with. They reopen when the contact writes again. |
Each row shows the contact, the channel, an email's subject, the start of the latest message and when it came. A dot marks unread messages. Rows are grouped by day.
Search finds threads by the contact's name or an email's subject. Press / to jump to it.
Split inboxes
Split inboxes give email with certain labels a tab of its own, so you can work through, say, every commission request in one go. They show on the Email list, in the line under the heading: Inbox first, then a tab for each split, each with how many threads it holds.
Pick Email from the menu beside the heading, then select Split (with the plus).
Name the split and tick the labels it shows. Choose any to show email with at least one of them, or all to need every one. Under But none of these, tick labels that keep email out.
Select Create split.
Email in a split leaves the Inbox tab, so the Inbox holds what's left. Turn on Also show in Inbox to keep a split's email in both places. A thread whose labels match two splits shows in both.
To edit, move or delete a split, open it and select the arrow next to its name. Deleting a split sends its email back to the Inbox tab and leaves the labels on the threads.
Splits read labels, so label your email first. See Label a thread and Labels.
Work through the list
The Inbox is built to be cleared from the keyboard. Press ? at any time to see every shortcut.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| J or ↓ | Next thread |
| K or ↑ | Previous thread |
| Enter | Open the thread |
| Esc | Back to the list |
| Tab | Next list. On Email it goes through each split first, then on to Text. Shift+Tab goes back. |
| E | Mark done, or undo done |
| H | Remind me |
| L | Label |
| R | Reply |
| C | New message |
| ⌘I | Show or hide the contact panel |
In the list, Done, Remind me and Label also appear when you hover a row. In a thread they sit at the end of the title, and ↑, ↓ and the contact panel button sit at the top right. Marking a thread done or setting it aside from inside it opens the next one.
Mark a thread done
Select Done (the tick), or press E. The thread moves to Done. If the contact writes again in that thread, it comes back to the top of the Inbox on its own.
On a thread that's already done, the tick is highlighted. Select it, or press E, to put the thread back in the Inbox.
A new email you start goes straight to Done, since you're waiting on them. Their reply brings it back.
Set a reminder
Set a thread aside and have it come back when you need it.
Select Remind me (the alarm clock), or press H.
Type when, such as "mon 9am", "in 3 days" or "next friday", and press Enter. Or pick Later today, Tomorrow, This weekend, Next week or In a month.
Turn on Only if they don't reply if you only want the reminder when they haven't answered. A reply in this thread calls it off.
The thread moves to Reminders and shows when it's due. When the time comes, it returns to the top of the Inbox. To remove a reminder, select the × on it at the top of the thread.
Label a thread
Labels file threads under names you choose, like Commissions or Suppliers. A thread can have several, on any channel.
Select Label (the tag), or press L. Tick the labels you want and untick the ones you don't. Each change saves straight away. To make a new label, type its name and pick Create label.
The labels show on the thread's row in the list and under its title.
Email can also be labelled for you, by rules or by a description AI reads each email against. Set that up on Settings → Labels.
Reply to someone
Open the thread.
Write your message.
- Chat and text: the message box sits at the bottom of the thread. Press Enter to send, or Shift+Enter for a new line. Select + to attach a file or, in a chat with a person, to send an offer.
- Email: select Reply to under the last email, or press R. Add Cc or Bcc if you need them, then select Send or press ⌘+Enter. Select the paperclip to attach a file.
A few things differ by channel:
- Email replies go out from the address the thread runs through, under the thread's subject. Earlier emails in a thread fold to one line; select one to open it, and select to next to the sender to see every address it went to.
- Text shows the number it goes from and that it's signed with your organization's name. A counter shows how many of the 1,600 characters you've used.
- Attachments on email arrive as links at the end of the message. On text, they go with the message as media.
Send an email later
Write an email now and have it go out at a better time.
Write your reply, or a new email from New message.
Select Send later.
Type when, such as "mon 9am", and press Enter. Or pick In an hour, This evening, Tomorrow morning, Tomorrow afternoon, Monday morning or In a week.
The email waits at the bottom of the thread with a Scheduled label and the time it goes. Until then:
- Send now sends it straight away.
- Change time picks a new time.
- Cancel stops it and puts its words back in the reply box so you can change them.
In the list, the thread shows when its email goes out. A scheduled email still goes if the contact replies first, so check the thread if their answer changes things.
Start a new thread
Select New message or press C. Find the person or company on the People or Companies tab, select them, then pick Chat, Text or Email. Text and Email are greyed out when there's no phone number or email address on file.
- Chat and Text open your thread with them on that channel.
- Email starts a new thread. Choose the address it comes From, add a Subject and your message, and select Send email or Send later.
An email from your organization's Lahuta address can't bring replies back into the Inbox. Their replies go to your organization's Public email from Organization settings, or to the first admin's email if you haven't set one. Connect a mailbox to keep the whole conversation in Lahuta.
You can also start from a contact: the message button at the top of their panel in Contacts opens New message with them picked.
See who you're talking to
The contact panel sits beside the thread. It shows their name, title or company, email and phone, and their other threads with you. Select an email address or phone number to copy it. Open in CRM takes you to them in Contacts, with their notes, reminders and activity.
Select the panel button at the top right, or press ⌘I, to show or hide it. It opens on its own on wide screens and remembers your choice.
Send a custom offer
In a chat thread with a person, select + in the message box, then Send offer to quote them a price for custom work. You set the Service, Brief, Amount, Delivery, Revisions and when it Expires in. They get an email and can accept and pay. See Custom offers.
Get notified about new messages
Emails about new messages are off by default, so a busy Inbox doesn't flood your team. To get one when a contact writes and nobody has read it after a moment, turn on Messages in your notification settings.