Reply or private note
Above the box, Reply and Private note decide what you are writing. A reply goes to the customer; a note stays with your team and never leaves Watx. Alt + N switches between them. Notes are covered on Working a conversation; the rest of this page is about replies.Text
Type and press Enter to send. Shift + Enter starts a new line. The box grows to about seven lines and then scrolls. Emoji opens a picker that inserts at the cursor. A reply can be up to 4,096 characters on WhatsApp and the website, and 1,000 on Instagram. A counter appears as you get close, and an over-long reply cannot be sent. On WhatsApp, starting to type a reply also shows the customer a typing indicator. Meta expires it by itself after about 25 seconds, so a long reply simply stops showing as typing rather than lying about it. A restored draft does not count as typing, and neither does a private note.Formatting
On a WhatsApp conversation, bold, italic, strikethrough and monospace buttons sit at the end of the toolbar. They wrap your selection in WhatsApp’s own markers —*bold*, _italic_, ~strike~ and a triple-backtick block for monospace — so the customer’s phone shows the same thing you see. Ctrl + B, Ctrl + I and Ctrl + Shift + X do the same.
The thread renders that markup — plus inline code in single backticks, quotes starting > and simple lists — on WhatsApp conversations and on private notes only. Instagram and the website widget have no formatting, so there the buttons are hidden and asterisks in a message stay as asterisks, exactly as the customer saw them.
Links and email addresses in any message are clickable on every channel.
Drafts
Whatever you leave unsent in a conversation is kept for that conversation, so you can switch to another and come back to find it where you left it. The list shows it on the row as Draft: followed by the text. Reply drafts and note drafts are kept separately. Drafts live in this browser on this device. They are not shared with teammates and do not follow you to another computer.Media
The paperclip menu offers Photo, Video, Document, From media library and Record a voice note. You can also paste a screenshot or copied image into the box, or drop a file onto it. A file uploads first and appears as a draft above the composer, where you can add a caption (up to 1,024 characters) and then send or discard it. Audio takes no caption.
Files over the limit, or of a type not listed, are refused before they upload, with the reason. Like text, media only sends while the reply window is open.
From media library picks something already uploaded to the workspace instead of uploading it again — see Media library.
Voice notes
When the box is empty, the microphone button takes the place of the send button. It records straight in the browser in the format WhatsApp plays as a voice note, so there is nothing to convert. While recording, the composer shows Recording… with the elapsed time out of5:00, a Discard button and a stop button. Recording stops by itself at five minutes, and the take lands as a draft you still have to send.
Your browser asks for microphone permission the first time.
Saved replies
Type/ at the start of an empty box, or press the lightning button in the toolbar, to pick one of the workspace’s canned replies. See Canned replies.
Reactions, replies, copy and info
Hover a message — or long-press it on a touch screen — for a small toolbar.- React — pick an emoji. The set offered is the one the channel can actually send: WhatsApp offers 👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 🙏, Instagram takes exactly 👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 😡, and the website widget has no reactions, so the button is hidden there. Clicking your own reaction pill under a message removes it.
- Reply — quotes that message above your next one (Replying to …). Clicking a quote in the thread jumps to the original. Esc cancels the quote.
- Copy text — copies the message text.
- Message info — who sent it, the exact time, its delivery status, the template name for a template, and Meta’s error for a failed message.
Approved templates
Templates are WhatsApp-only. The template button in the toolbar (Send a template) opens a picker listing the workspace’s approved templates with their category and language. Pick one and fill in whatever it needs — body variables, a header value, a header image or document, a location pin, button values, coupon codes, carousel cards. Meta rejects the entire message if any one of them is missing, so the dialog names the gaps (“Still needed: …”) and keeps the send button disabled until they are filled. A template that needs nothing sends straight away. If no approved templates are listed, create one and wait for Meta to approve it. See Message templates.The reply window
On WhatsApp and Instagram, a free-form reply can only be sent within 24 hours of the customer’s last message. The thread header shows how long is left — 5h 12m left, amber in the last two hours — and Reply window closed when it has run out. No reply window means there is no message from the customer to start one, for example a conversation your business opened. When the window is closed, the box is locked and an amber strip explains why:- WhatsApp — “The 24-hour reply window has closed. WhatsApp only allows an approved template until the customer writes again.” with Send template beside it.
- Instagram — “The 24-hour reply window has closed. Instagram has no templates — you can reply once this person messages again.”
Product cards
The bag button (Send a product) is WhatsApp-only and needs a connected catalog. Search your catalog by product name or retailer ID, then send either:- Single Product (SPM) — one product card, with optional body and footer text.
- Multi-Product List (MPM) — up to 30 products in one message. Header text and body text are required; the section title and footer are optional.
Payment links
The card button — Request a payment — appears on every channel, because a payment link is an ordinary URL that carries just as well in an Instagram DM or a website chat as on WhatsApp. It appears whenever the conversation has a contact, since a link is made out to a person. The dialog asks for the amount, how long the link should stay payable, what it is for, and an optional message. Watx creates the link on the workspace’s own Razorpay account and sends it in this conversation — there is nothing to paste. If Razorpay is not connected the dialog says so and points to the setup rather than failing on submit. If the workspace is in Razorpay test mode it says that too. Out of the 24-hour window on WhatsApp, a link can only be delivered inside an approved template. If your workspace has nominated one, the dialog says the link will go out that way and the button changes to Send via template; if it has not, the dialog blocks the request and explains why rather than creating a link nobody will receive. See Razorpay payments.Draft a reply with AI
The sparkles button — Draft a reply with AI — asks your AI agent to write a reply and drops it into the composer for you to edit. Nothing is sent until you press send. It is disabled when the reply window has closed, since there would be nothing to send the draft as. If the workspace has no AI set up, or has run out of credits, the message says which; running out offers Top up right there. See Test mode and playground and Credits and your own key.How the thread reads
- Days are separated by a date that stays pinned to the top while you scroll through that day.
- Runs — consecutive messages from the same author within a few minutes are grouped, with the name shown once at the top of the group.
- Who sent it — your side’s messages carry a label: You, a teammate’s name, or AI · and the agent’s name for an AI reply. Messages sent by automations, flows and campaigns carry no label, and neither do older replies sent before Watx recorded who wrote them — they show no name rather than a guessed one.
- Unread — opening a conversation with unread messages scrolls to a N unread messages divider above the first of them.
- History — the latest 50 messages load first. Scroll up, or press Load earlier messages, for more. The top of the history says This is the start of your conversation with ….
- New messages while you read — if you have scrolled up, new messages do not pull you down. A round button in the corner jumps to the latest and counts what arrived.
- Images open full-size when clicked.
Delivery status on your messages
Every message you send carries a state in its corner.
A failed message is outlined in red, and the reason Meta gave is written under the bubble, with the full text in a tooltip and in Message info. A failed text message also shows Retry while the reply window is open: it sends the text again as a new message, and the failed one stays in the history as the record of what happened.
Instagram never reports delivery, so an Instagram message shows one tick until it is read and then jumps to read. That is the honest state, not a bug.