Filter conversations (All, Unread, Drafts)
A one-tap toggle at the top of the chat list narrows your inbox to only unread conversations, or only the ones where you left a draft, so nothing waiting on you gets buried.
Basic When your inbox gets busy, the filters cut the noise down to only the conversations that actually need something from you.
Using the filter
At the top of the chat conversation list you’ll see an All | Unread | Drafts toggle (on the web sidebar and, as filter chips, on mobile). Tap Unread to show only conversations with at least one unread message. Tap Drafts to show only conversations where you have an unsent draft waiting. Tap All to go back to the full list.
How it works
- A conversation appears in Unread as long as it has at least one message you haven’t opened.
- Opening the conversation clears its unread count and it drops out of the filtered list.
- A conversation appears in Drafts as long as its composer holds unsent text (or attached media). Sending or clearing the draft drops it out of the filtered list live.
- Drafts is ordered by when you last typed, newest first. That is deliberately different from the main list, which is ordered by the most recent message: it means the reply you were part-way through last night sits at the top, not wherever that client happens to rank.
- The filters apply to your whole inbox, however many conversations you have, and to both direct and group conversations. The count on each filter is the total across the inbox, not just the part currently on screen.
Why Drafts helps
Drafts are not messages, so a conversation where you typed a reply at midnight and never hit send does not bubble to the top of the list the way a sent message would. By morning it can be buried under everything that arrived overnight. The Drafts filter collects those threads in one tap, so a written-but-unsent reply is never lost. (Rows with a draft also show a red Draft: preview.)
What the Unread filter can’t catch
The filter is about unread, not unanswered. A message you read on your phone at 6am and meant to reply to later is no longer unread, so it won’t appear here, even though the client is still waiting.
For that, use the “You:” prefix on the conversation rows: a row without it means the client spoke last. Switch to All and scan for rows with no “You:”. See reading a row at a glance.
The choice persists
Protocol remembers which mode you were in and restores it the next time you open chat on the web, even after a page reload or a different browser session.
Related: see unread badges and how the shared inbox clears them in Messaging basics →