What are private notes?
Private notes are messages you send inside a conversation that are only visible to your team. The visitor never sees them. Use private notes to share context, ask a colleague for advice, or leave information for the next agent who picks up the conversation.
Private notes appear with a distinct background in the message thread so you can tell them apart from public messages at a glance.
How to write a private note
- Open the conversation.
- In the input bar, click the eye icon (or the Public/Private toggle) to switch to Private mode. The input bar background changes to indicate you're in private mode.
- Type your note and press Enter to send.
The toggle stays in private mode until you switch it back, so you can write multiple notes in sequence without toggling each time.
@mentioning a teammate
While writing a private note, type @ followed by your teammate's name. A dropdown appears with matching team members. Select the person you want to notify.
The mentioned teammate receives a notification and can click through to the conversation directly. This is the fastest way to ask a colleague for help on a specific conversation without leaving the inbox.
Auto translation is skipped for private notes
If you have auto translation enabled on the conversation, outgoing translation is skipped for private notes — they're always sent in the language you typed. Incoming translation still works normally for public visitor messages.
What's next
For pre-written responses you can drop in with a single keystroke, see Use saved replies.