# Conversations

> The specification of Reply conversations — message threads with one contact across email and LinkedIn, their participants, CC handling, threading rules, and outside-email sync.

**A conversation is the thread of messages between your workspace and one contact — automatic and manual emails plus LinkedIn messages, connection requests, and InMails. Follow-up emails with an empty subject line send in the same thread. Replies always go out from the email account the thread is connected to, and emails sent outside Reply can sync in.**

_Status: Reviewed — human-edited, facts not yet confirmed against the product._

## At a glance

| Aspect | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| **What it is** | The message history between your workspace and one [contact](/specifications/contacts) — automatic and manual emails, LinkedIn messages, connection requests, and InMails |
| **Belongs to / Contains** | Belongs to one contact; references the [sequence](/specifications/sequences) where it was initiated; shown in the [Inbox](/specifications/inbox) |
| **Key rule** | Follow-up emails with an empty subject line send in the same thread as the opener |
| **Sending account** | A reply always goes out from the email account the thread is connected to — the From row is read-only |
| **Key limit** | LinkedIn messages are capped at 8,000 characters |
| **Does not** | Show emails sent outside Reply until the contact has received at least one email from Reply; thread follow-ups when the opener's subject carries a "Re:"-style prefix; thread test emails |
| **Team access** | History covers responses to you and to other team members; viewing a contact's full email history as a team requires the Team Edition |

## Definition

A conversation (thread) is the message history between your workspace and one
[contact](/specifications/contacts). It spans automatic and manual emails as well as
LinkedIn messages, connection requests, and InMails, displayed chronologically with all
related details — the contact's profile, contact information, and email address.

## Purpose

Conversations bring every exchange with a contact into one place, so you can read the full
history, respond, forward, and save new participants as contacts without switching between
mailboxes or parts of the platform. They are the unit the [Inbox](/specifications/inbox)
lists, filters, and categorizes.

## Relationships

| Relationship | Object |
| --- | --- |
| Belongs to | One [contact](/specifications/contacts) — clicking a participant's name or address opens the contact sidebar |
| References | The [sequence](/specifications/sequences) where the thread was initiated; empty for conversations started via direct LinkedIn actions from the contact card |
| Sent from | The [email account](/specifications/email-accounts) or LinkedIn account connected to the thread |
| Shown in | The [Inbox](/specifications/inbox), at both the consolidated and the sequence level |
| Feeds | The contact's Activity log — synced emails appear under its Emails tab |

## Creation

Threads become visible once contacts reply — with no replies yet, the inbox is empty. The
system stores the history of emails, LinkedIn messages, connection requests, and InMails
from the point a contact responds, whether to you or to other team members, as part of
sequences.

Conversations can also start from direct LinkedIn actions taken on the contact card
outside any sequence; those threads show no originating sequence.

## Lifecycle and states

- **Unread → read.** Unread threads appear in bold with a small blue circle next to the contact name; opening a thread marks it read and decreases the unread counter.
- **LinkedIn message states.** After you click Send, a message shows the **Sending** status. Messages queued behind it carry the **Planned** status, and the thread keeps Planned in the list view while its latest message is pending. Once a message is sent, the status is replaced with the date and time it was dispatched.
- **LinkedIn errors.** If sending fails, an error tooltip appears next to the message with **Retry** and **Delete** options. An errored message keeps its error status unless acted upon and does not block sending new messages.
- **Category.** Each thread carries one inbox category, assigned by AI or manually — see [Inbox](/specifications/inbox).

## Configuration

### Email threading

To send sequence emails in the same thread, give the Step 1 email a subject and leave the
subject line of follow-up emails empty — the new emails are grouped with the original
message, forming the thread. If the Step 1 subject contains symbols or prefixes such as
"Re:", the follow-ups are not sent in the same thread and have no subject line. Via the
API, a follow-up variant with an empty (null) subject is accepted by the sequence
endpoints and delivers in the opener's thread; the message body remains required.

### Replying on behalf of teammates

By default, you can reply only to threads that you initiated. Support can enable replying
on behalf of teammates; with the feature on, you switch between team members in the Inbox
to view their threads and respond. The reply is still sent from the email account the
thread is connected to and stays in the same thread, regardless of who opens the composer.

### AI-generated draft replies

When a sequence's AI Replies are set to save a draft, the draft opens automatically when
you open the thread. If the inbound message has CC recipients, the draft's CC is pre-filled
by merging the inbound message's CC recipients with the CC addresses configured in the
sequence's AI Replies settings, de-duplicated case-insensitively. You can review and edit
the merged list before sending.

## Processing behavior

### How messages attach

Clicking a thread shows the chronological history of all messages with the contact.
Clicking a message reveals its sender and recipients; a small down arrow near the sender's
address expands the exact CC and BCC addresses on that message.

Emails sent outside Reply — directly from Gmail, Outlook, and similar clients — sync into
the Reply inbox and the contact's Activity, provided the contact has already been sent at
least one email from your Reply account. Data syncs for all contacts in the organization
database from the moment they received their first email from Reply; for existing users,
20 days of email history back is synced when the feature is enabled, and direct emails are
detected for the same 20 days after the last email touch from Reply.

### Replying

There are two ways to respond: the **Reply** button at the bottom of the thread answers
the entire thread, and the arrow button in front of a particular message attaches your
response as a comment on that message. The composer supports templates, variables, a
preview (the eye icon), and text formatting such as pictures, videos, and links.

When the message you are replying to has CC recipients, the composer also shows **Reply
all**. **Reply** sets To to the sender and leaves CC empty; **Reply all** sets To to the
sender and carries the original message's CC recipients, editable before sending. Either
way the reply stays in the same thread. Before sending, the CC list is cleaned: the
sender's own mailbox address is removed, the To recipient is removed from CC, blacklisted
addresses are removed, and duplicates are removed case-insensitively. If every CC address
is filtered out, the reply still sends with an empty CC — filtration never blocks sending.

The composer shows a read-only **From** row with the sending email account — always the
account the thread is connected to. A connection status dot is green when the account's
IMAP and SMTP settings are valid and red when they are not; it also turns red the moment a
reply fails to send on a connection error (that instant state resets on page reload). For
Gmail, Office 365, and Exchange accounts in an unhealthy state, a **Reconnect** button
opens the provider's sign-in flow in a new tab; accounts connected manually over SMTP/IMAP
are reconnected in Settings → Email Accounts instead.

### Forwarding

You can forward the whole thread with the Forward control at the end of the conversation,
or forward one specific reply with the Forward control next to that message.

## Side effects

- Opening a thread marks it as read; unread counters update simultaneously in the consolidated and sequence-level inboxes.
- Clicking a participant opens the contact sidebar. Existing contacts show their saved card; a new participant shows only an email address, and you can create the contact right from the thread.
- Emails synced from outside Reply also appear in the contact's Activity log under the Emails tab.

## Limits

| Limit | Value |
| --- | --- |
| LinkedIn message length | 8,000 characters — above that, the Send button is unclickable |
| Historical sync depth for existing accounts | 20 days back from when inbox sync is enabled |
| Direct-email detection window | 20 days after the last email touch from Reply |
| Replying to teammates' threads | Off by default for email (support can enable it); not possible for LinkedIn threads |

## Deletion behavior

Desktop inbox bulk actions do not include deleting threads; the mobile app offers Delete
as a bulk action. An unsent LinkedIn message in an error state can be removed with its
**Delete** option. The sources do not document thread retention or a way to delete a whole
conversation from the desktop Inbox.

## Edge cases

- An opener subject with symbols or a "Re:"-style prefix breaks threading — follow-ups arrive as separate emails with no subject line.
- Test emails of sequence steps arrive separately, not in one thread: Reply considers tests unlinked. To preview the real threading, add yourself as a contact to the sequence.
- Emails a prospect exchanged with your team before their first Reply email are not synced into the thread.
- If the email account behind a thread has been deleted, the composer still opens, but the From row is greyed out showing the address recorded in the thread, a warning is displayed, and Send is disabled.
- Participants not saved in Reply appear as a bare email address; after you save them as contacts, their full names show in the thread as well.
- LinkedIn sends can fail when the LinkedIn account is disconnected or its cookie is invalid, when either LinkedIn profile was deleted, when the recipient's privacy settings block incoming messages, on a teammate's thread, when the Sales Navigator subscription behind InMail has expired, when daily safety limits are exceeded, while a previous message is still pending, or when message variables are formatted incorrectly.

## FAQ

### How do I send sequence emails in the same thread?

Give the Step 1 email a subject and leave the follow-up subject lines empty — the
follow-ups group into the opener's thread. Avoid symbols or prefixes like "Re:" in the
opener subject, or threading breaks. See [Sequence steps](/specifications/sequence-steps).

### Do emails sent outside Reply appear in the conversation?

Yes — emails sent directly from Gmail, Outlook, and similar clients sync into the Reply
inbox and the contact's Activity, as long as the contact has already received at least one
email from your Reply account. Direct emails are detected for 20 days after the last email
touch from Reply.

### Can I reply to a thread a teammate started?

By default, no — you can reply only to threads you initiated. For email threads, support
can enable replying on behalf of teammates; the reply is then sent from the email account
the thread is connected to and stays in the same thread. For LinkedIn threads, replying to
a teammate's thread is blocked.

### Can I save someone from CC or BCC as a contact?

Yes. Expand a message's recipients with the down arrow near the sender's address, click
the email address, and the contact profile card opens so you can fill in the details and
create the contact without leaving the Inbox.

### Why can't I change the From address when replying?

A reply always goes out from the email account the thread is connected to — the account
that sent the original step. The composer shows that account in a read-only From row; it
is not a selector. See [Email accounts](/specifications/email-accounts).

## Related

- [Inbox](/specifications/inbox) — where conversations are listed, filtered, and categorized
- [Reply detection](/behavior/reply-detection) — how inbound messages are recognized
- [Sequence steps](/specifications/sequence-steps) — where threading is configured
- [Email accounts](/specifications/email-accounts) — the sending account behind each thread
- [Process replies](/how-to/process-replies)

## Build with Reply

- REST API: [docs.reply.io](https://docs.reply.io/api-reference/introduction) — sequence endpoints accept an empty subject on follow-up variants to send in the same thread
- MCP: [agents.reply.io/mcp](https://agents.reply.io/mcp) — agents read threads and send replies