Live Chat Inbox Filters: Find Conversations Fast

Live chat inbox filters decide how fast a team finds the one conversation that needs attention. With five chats a day, a plain list is enough. With fifty chats, tickets from e-mail and a night of messages waiting, a plain list becomes a pile, and the visitor who has waited longest is buried under the ones who wrote last. The Talkmio Inbox gives you filters, tabs and search to turn the pile into a queue. This guide explains each filter, shows when to use it, suggests a daily routine for one person and for a team, and lists the mistakes that leave conversations unanswered.

The idea of a shared queue comes from help desk software and the wider practice of customer service. Talkmio is an AI live chat for websites. Its assistant, Mio, reads your website, FAQ and uploaded documents and answers only from that content. When Mio cannot answer, the chat lands in your Inbox with a needs-human badge. The filters help you handle those chats first, and review the rest.

Live Chat Inbox Filters in Talkmio

According to the Talkmio documentation, the Inbox offers these filters: All, Mine, Unassigned, Unanswered, Mio replied and Closed. There are also tabs for chats and tickets, and a search that works on name, e-mail, text or a ticket number. Each filter answers a different question.

Filter	The question it answers	Typical user
All	What is happening everywhere?	Owner, manager
Mine	What have I got to do?	Every agent
Unassigned	What has nobody taken yet?	Whoever starts the shift
Unanswered	Who is waiting for a reply?	Everyone, several times a day
Mio replied	What did the assistant handle alone?	Admin, for quality review
Closed	What is finished, and what did we say?	Anyone looking for history

The names are short, but the habits behind them matter more than the labels. Most teams use two or three filters daily and the others for review.

Unanswered: Your Most Important Filter

Unanswered is the filter for the visitor who is waiting. A conversation appears here when it needs a reply from a person. It includes chats that Mio handed over, requests for a person, complaints and questions about a specific order, as well as messages left while your team was offline. Open it first thing in the morning and again after every break. When the list is empty, you are caught up.

Combine Unanswered with the response time target in Settings. Conversations without a first reply within your target get an overdue badge, so the oldest and most urgent ones stand out. If the badge keeps appearing on the same type of chat, the target may be unrealistic or the schedule may have a hole. Our guide to live chat response targets explains how to choose a number that you can keep.

Mine and Unassigned: Sharing the Work

Used well, live chat inbox filters are mostly about fairness: everyone sees the same queue, and everyone knows which part of it is theirs.

In a team of two or more, ownership matters. The conversation header lets you assign a team member, so every chat has an owner. Mine shows only the chats assigned to you, which is your personal to-do list. Unassigned shows chats that nobody owns, which is the pool to pick from. A simple rule keeps it working: whoever opens an unassigned chat assigns it to themselves before writing the first word. That prevents the classic mistake of two colleagues replying to the same visitor.

Agents handle conversations, and Admins also manage websites, Mio, channels and settings, while the Owner handles billing. Each member sets a status of Online, Away or Offline, so you can see who is available. For a larger team, decide how work is shared: by language, by topic or by round robin on a rota. Our guide to routing chats to the right agent offers practical patterns.

Mio Replied: Quality Review Without Reading Everything

The filter Mio replied shows conversations that the assistant answered. You will not read all of them, and you do not need to. Use it as a quality sample. Once a week, open ten chats and ask three questions: was the answer correct, was it complete and would a visitor be satisfied? When an answer is wrong, find the source in the knowledge base and fix it. When it is missing, add a question and answer pair. When the tone is wrong, adjust the business instructions. This habit is the cheapest way to make Mio better.

The reports show the share answered by Mio alone, which is the number to watch as you improve the content. Our guide to auditing the accuracy of an AI chatbot describes a fuller review method.

Closed and Search: Finding What Was Said

Closed holds finished conversations, and search finds anything. You can search by name, e-mail, text or a ticket number. This is valuable when a customer writes again and you need the history, when a colleague asks what was promised or when you want to see how often a topic appears. Type a word such as “refund” or “invoice” and read the matches. A pattern found this way often leads to a new page on your site.

The status of a conversation, set in the header, controls what you find. The statuses are Open, Pending, Solved and Closed, and the priority runs from Low to Urgent. Keep them honest, since a Solved conversation that is still waiting for the customer will be missed. Our guide to support ticket statuses explains how to use each one.

Chats and Tickets: Two Tabs, One Workflow

The Inbox has separate tabs for chats and tickets. Every conversation can become a numbered ticket with a priority and a status. On Pro and higher plans, forwarded support e-mail also becomes tickets, and replies from the Inbox go back by e-mail in the same thread. Use the chats tab for live conversations and the tickets tab for work that takes hours or days. Convert a chat to a ticket whenever you need to wait for the customer, check with another department or write a longer answer. The filters work in both tabs, so Unanswered also shows e-mail tickets that wait for you.

A Daily Routine for One Person

Start: set your status to Online, open Unanswered and clear the overnight messages, oldest first.
Triage: set the priority for each remaining chat, and assign everything that is not yours.
Work: reply using quick replies, inserted with a slash in the reply box, and use Suggest for a draft from your knowledge base.
Park: set Pending for chats that wait for the customer, and add an internal note that says what you are waiting for.
Check: glance at Unanswered every hour, or whenever a notification arrives.
Finish: close what is solved, review Mine, and set your status to Offline.

The routine takes minutes and prevents most missed conversations.

A Routine for a Team

Teams that rely on live chat inbox filters still need a human agreement on top of them. Without it, the best filter shows a list that nobody feels responsible for, and conversations wait while everyone assumes that a colleague has already looked.

For a team, add three agreements. First, a start-of-shift check of Unassigned, with one person responsible each shift. Second, a rule for hand-over: every chat that stays open at the end of the shift has an internal note and an owner. Third, a weekly sample from Mio replied and Closed, reviewed together, in the same meeting where you look at the reports. Our guide to the weekly support review meeting shows an agenda. Use the Talkmio mobile app for iOS and Android when someone is away from the desk; it shows the inbox, conversations, live visitors and your status, and sends push notifications for new messages, hand-offs and tickets.

Mistakes That Leave Conversations Waiting

Even good live chat inbox filters cannot help a team that does not use them.

Working only in All. A long mixed list hides the chats that are waiting.
Not assigning. Without an owner, everyone assumes that someone else has it.
Forgetting Pending. A chat that waits for the customer needs a status, or it clutters Unanswered.
Ignoring Mio replied. Wrong answers repeat until someone finds them.
Skipping notes. A colleague who takes over cannot see what you promised.

Review these once a month, and remove one habit at a time. Small, consistent routines beat clever systems.

Examples: Filters in Real Situations

The Monday morning backlog

A weekend of messages has gathered. Open Unanswered and sort out the oldest first. Set priorities, assign the order questions to the person who sees the order system and answer the simple ones yourself using quick replies. When Unanswered is empty, switch to Mio replied and glance at the weekend’s automatic answers for anything odd.

A customer writes again

A visitor says “I wrote last week about my invoice.” Search their e-mail, open the earlier conversation and read what was said before you answer. Because every conversation keeps its history, you can answer as if you remembered. Contacts also stores everyone who ever wrote, with their conversation history, which helps for returning customers.

Several people on shift

Three agents work the same afternoon. Each opens Mine to see their list. One person checks Unassigned every thirty minutes and hands out new chats. A fourth person, the owner, uses All to see the whole picture and to spot a conversation that has stayed open too long. Nobody scrolls through the others’ work.

Using Filters Together With Priority and Status

Filters show where a conversation is; priority and status show how urgent it is and what is going on. Set the priority from Low to Urgent in the conversation header when you triage, and update the status as the work moves: Open for active work, Pending when you wait for the customer, Solved when the issue is fixed and Closed when it is finished. A good habit is to close a conversation only after the customer has had a chance to reply. Review Pending chats at the end of each day so that a customer who answered is not forgotten. If an issue needs the attention of a colleague in another department, assign the conversation or convert it to a ticket, and leave an internal note, which only your team sees, explaining what you need.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which filters does the Talkmio Inbox have?

The Inbox offers All, Mine, Unassigned, Unanswered, Mio replied and Closed, with separate tabs for chats and tickets. You can also search by name, e-mail, text or a ticket number. Use Unanswered several times a day and Mio replied for weekly quality checks.

How do I see which conversations are waiting for me?

Open Unanswered to see chats that need a reply from a person, and Mine to see chats assigned to you. Conversations without a first reply within your target time also get an overdue badge, which you set in Settings under the response time target.

Can I assign a conversation to a colleague?

Yes. In the conversation header you can assign a team member, set the priority from Low to Urgent and change the status between Open, Pending, Solved and Closed. Assigning avoids two people answering the same visitor and makes the Mine filter useful.

How can I check what Mio has been telling visitors?

Use the Mio replied filter and read a sample, for example ten chats each week. Look for wrong, missing or badly worded answers, then fix the knowledge base or the business instructions. The reports also show the share answered by Mio alone.

Can I find an old conversation or ticket?

Yes. Search by name, e-mail, text or a ticket number such as #123, and open the Closed filter for finished conversations. Contacts also keeps everyone who ever wrote to you, with their full conversation history, which helps when a customer returns.

Do the filters work on the mobile app?

The mobile app for iOS and Android shows the inbox and conversations with Mio assist, and sends push notifications for new messages, hand-offs and tickets. Check the app itself for the exact filter options, since the web Inbox has the full list.

The Bottom Line

Live chat inbox filters turn a pile of messages into a queue: Unanswered for the visitors who wait, Mine and Unassigned for sharing the work, Mio replied for quality and Closed with search for history. Add assignment, statuses and notes, and keep a short daily routine. Start free with Talkmio and see how calm an Inbox can be when every conversation has an owner.

Live Chat Inbox Filters: Find the Right Conversation Fast