Chat guide
Everything you can do in the chat
Keyboard tricks, hidden gestures and shortcuts most people never find — for both the customer-facing widget and the agent side. Skim it once and you'll get more out of every conversation.
Emojis
Three ways to drop emoji into a conversation — use whichever your muscle memory likes.
Type :smile:, :fire:, :heart: — they convert to 😄 🔥 ❤️ on send.
Click + left of the input → Emoji. Search by name, click to insert.
Paste any emoji directly: 🦖 🎉 🌈 — emoji-only messages render larger, Slack-style.
:shipit: emote, typing :shipit: renders it inline. Ask the admin if a shortcode you expected doesn't show up.Text formatting
A tiny Markdown subset — handy for highlighting a word or quoting a customer.
Wrap text with **double asterisks** for bold, or *single* for italic.
Backticks around a snippet: `like this` renders as monospace. Good for URLs you don't want auto-linked.
Start a line with > + space to render it as a quote block. Useful for replying to something specific without breaking the thread.
Mentions & replies
In an internal note, type @ and start their name — autocomplete pops with everyone on the team. ↑ ↓ to pick, Tab or Enter to insert.
Mentioned teammates see a yellow ring on the bubble plus an unread badge in the bell — even with the tab in the background.
Hover any message → click ↩ Reply. Your message threads under the parent so the customer keeps the context of the conversation.
Replies stay one level deep — a reply-of-a-reply still threads under the head.
Reactions
Pinned messages & polls
When an admin pins a message it sticks as a yellow banner at the top of the conversation — an announcement, an SLA note, a link to a status page. Click the banner to jump straight to the original message in the timeline.
Drop a poll as a message bubble with options. Recipients click an option to vote — bars update live as everyone votes. You can change your vote by clicking a different option.
Editing & deleting your own messages
5-minute window — hover your own message → Edit or Delete. After 5 min the actions disappear (you can still ask an admin to remove it).
Edited messages keep an (edited) tag next to the time so the conversation stays honest.
Images & GIFs
Click + → Image or drag-and-drop one onto the chat. Limits: 15 MB, common formats (PNG / JPEG / GIF / WebP). HelpBird re-encodes and strips EXIF before posting — perfect for screenshots and bug reports.
Paste any link — chat auto-detects images and renders them inline. Other URLs become clickable links with the same anti-spam guards as regular text.
Notifications & sound
The toolbar bell shows unread mentions and replies addressed to you. Click to jump straight to the conversation.
Click an avatar → Mute. You stop seeing their messages locally — they aren't notified.
Sun / moon toggle in the header. Per-device setting; nothing is saved server-side.
Avatar dropdown → Change wallpaper. Pick from presets or upload your own (per-device).
Live chat plus a shared inbox — install with one script tag. Free 15-day trial, no credit card.