Understand messages and conversation history
Last updated: August 10, 2026
Open a conversation to review its history before responding. Winly preserves the channel’s message types and adds visual indicators for sender, delivery context, reactions, and activity.
Avatars and Indicators
Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|
Avatar on the left | The contact who sent the incoming message |
Avatar on the right | The teammate who sent the outgoing message |
Channel icon Avatar | The message was not sent from inside Winly |
Activity row between messages | An owner or Autopilot-related event, when activity history is enabled |
Hover over a message bubble to see its exact date and time. Date separators appear when the conversation crosses into a new day.
Supported Message Types
Message type | How it appears | Available interaction |
|---|---|---|
Text | Standard message bubble | Instagram reply and heart reaction when eligible |
Image | Thumbnail that opens a larger preview | Instagram reply and heart reaction when eligible |
Video or reel | Inline video player | Instagram reply and heart reaction when eligible |
Audio | Audio player with optional transcription | Play, request/retry transcription, reply, or react when eligible |
Document link, using the filename when available | Open in a new tab; Instagram reply/react when eligible | |
Story mention | Story media with mention context | View media and react when eligible |
Story reply | Referenced story media with the reply text | View media and react when eligible |
Comment | Comment text and associated post media | Open the post, inspect the thread, or reply when eligible |
Private comment reply | The original comment plus the private message | Review the relationship between comment and reply |
Collapsible messages grouped by subject/thread | Expand the thread and select Reply to thread | |
Activity | Centered system event | Informational only |
Deleted messages display This message was deleted.
An unsupported channel payload displays Unsupported Message.
Audio Transcriptions
Received audio can show an existing transcription or Click to transcribe audio.
Long transcriptions can be expanded with show more. Transcription for messages your team sends appears only when that workspace feature is enabled.
Email and Merged Conversations
Email messages are grouped into threads. Each thread shows its subject, preview, participant avatars, message count, and latest timestamp. Expand a thread to read its messages, then select Reply to thread.
A merged SMS/Email contact uses one chronological view for SMS messages and email threads. The composer lets you choose whether the next response is SMS or email.
Load older Instagram history
Winly loads older messages as you scroll toward the beginning of a conversation. At the oldest stored message, Fetch from IG can appear when Instagram may still have older history available which are messages which were part of the conversation before connecting the account to Winly.
Select Fetch from IG button once and wait for the request to finish.
The button may not appear when:
The conversation is not an Instagram conversation.
All available history has already been loaded.
The workspace has disabled manual Instagram history fetches.