Every conversation Arbyn handles, across email, chat, Instagram, and Messenger, lands in one place: your Inbox. This is where you see what Arbyn said, why it said it, and where you take over if you want to.
What it does
The Inbox has two parts: a list on the left of every conversation, with search, filters, and sorting, and a full conversation view on the right once you pick one. Nothing here is channel-specific; an email thread, a chat, and an Instagram DM all show up and behave the same way.
Where to find it
Go to Inbox in the main navigation.
How it works
The conversation list
Three tabs sit at the top and are always visible: All, Unresolved, and Escalated. A More views menu next to them holds Resolved, Awaiting customer, Needs reply, Drafts, Snoozed, and Closed. Above the list, you can filter by intent, priority, channel, whether Arbyn or a human is currently handling it, and by tag once you've created some. Sort by most recent activity, oldest first, longest waiting for a reply, or priority. Select multiple conversations at once to resolve, close, or snooze them for 24 hours in one action. A Compose button opens a modal where you pick or type a customer and write a subject, for starting an email conversation that didn't begin with the customer reaching out (see the dedicated Compose article for the full walkthrough).
The conversation view
Opening a conversation shows its ticket number (once your shop has one assigned, configurable in Settings, Inbox), a status badge, and, when relevant, its intent and the customer's sentiment. The buttons available change with the conversation's current state:
Escalate appears while Arbyn is still actively handling it.
Once escalated, Resolve escalation hands it back to Arbyn with a note for context, without closing the whole conversation or triggering a satisfaction survey the way a full Resolve does.
Resolve and Close are available on any conversation that isn't already resolved or closed.
Reopen brings a resolved or closed conversation back to active.
Snooze, next to the customer's name, hides a conversation from your active view until a preset time you pick (in 2 hours, tomorrow morning, in 3 days, or next week), then it resurfaces on its own.
A priority badge shows next to the customer's name when a conversation has been marked above the default priority. A Show events toggle lets you interleave what's normally hidden into the message timeline: Arbyn's own reasoning, commerce events like orders and discounts, and guardrail or escalation events, so you can see exactly why it did what it did, not just what it said.
Replying or taking over
The compose box at the bottom has three modes: Reply, which goes to the customer; Note, which only your team ever sees; and AI Tools, for generating or reshaping a draft. Typing / inside Reply opens your saved quick replies. If you want to answer a customer yourself instead of Arbyn, taking over hands the conversation to you; Arbyn steps back until you return it. Returning it asks you for a short handoff note, so Arbyn picks up knowing what you did and doesn't repeat it back to the customer.
The note on the customer, not the conversation
Separate from the composer's team-only note, the customer panel beside the conversation holds a note about the customer themselves, up to 5,000 characters. This is the place for something durable and true across every conversation they'll ever have with you: they always order in a size up, they're a wholesale account, they've had two damaged deliveries in a row and deserve extra care.
Two things make it worth using rather than a composer note. It follows the customer across conversations, so it's there the next time they get in touch rather than buried in a thread from four months ago. And it syncs to that customer's record in your Shopify admin, so it's the same note your team sees in Shopify, not a second one that quietly disagrees.
Use the composer note for something about this conversation; use the customer note for something about this person.
Good to know
A ticket number only shows once your shop has one configured. The prefix and digit count are set in Settings, Inbox.
"Longest waiting" sort is about the customer's wait, not the conversation's age. A conversation from last week that's already been answered sorts differently from one that's genuinely gone quiet.
Resolving an escalated conversation is different from resolving a normal one on purpose. It's designed to hand the conversation back to Arbyn with context, not to close it outright.
FAQ
Where do I manage tags, quick replies, or my inbox's ticket numbering? Tags and quick replies each have their own dedicated help article; ticket numbering, along with a few other small inbox behaviors, lives in your inbox settings.
How do I know if a conversation needs my attention right now? Check the notifications bell in the top bar, or filter your list to Escalated and Needs reply, which are the two views most likely to need a human.
Can a customer tell when a human, not Arbyn, replied? Yes, a reply you send yourself after taking over is shown to the customer as coming from you, not from Arbyn.