The Inbox: every comment, message and mention in one tray

What lands in the Inbox?

Three kinds of conversation from the accounts you have connected: comments on your posts, direct messages, and mentions of your brand. The networks that answer today are Instagram, Facebook and TikTok — you reply from MB Suite and the reply is published on the network it belongs to, without opening one app per platform. One exception is in Instagram mentions, explained below.

Can I reply to Instagram mentions?

It depends on how they mentioned you, and the context card above the thread tells you which it is. If someone names your brand with @ in the text of their post (You were mentioned in this post) or in a comment (You were mentioned in a comment on @{username}'s post), the mention reaches the tray as soon as Instagram reports it and you reply from MB Suite: your reply is published on that post —as a comment, or as a reply to the comment that mentioned you— and its audience sees it. The AI Community Manager can reply too, if its territory includes mentions.

If instead an account tags you in the photo (You were tagged in this post), the post comes in so you can see it, but Instagram doesn't allow commenting on it from another app. That's why the reply box only offers Internal note and neither rules nor the AI Community Manager answer it: to reply, open it with View on the platform and answer on Instagram.

What if I reply from the network's app?

The reply shows up in the Inbox too: when your brand answers a comment from the Instagram, Facebook or TikTok app, it appears in the thread on your brand's side and, if the comment was still pending, the comment moves to Replied. That way your team sees it's already handled and doesn't answer it again from MB Suite.

On TikTok, if the person deletes their comment or the comment becomes hidden, it leaves the tray: it stays in Archived, without the text or the details of who wrote it. If it becomes public again, it comes back.

How do I turn it on?

• Connect at least one Instagram, Facebook or TikTok account in Settings > Integrations (see Integrations: what you can connect and how they work). With none connected, the Inbox greets you with Connect a network to your Inbox and the shortcut to do it.
• Go to Social Media > Inbox. With accounts connected and the tray still off, you land on Activate your unified inbox, which counts how many accounts it would cover.
• Press Turn on inbox. Only from that moment do we start fetching your activity; while the history is being imported you see Importing conversations… and it can take a minute.

How do I choose what comes in from each network?

In Settings > General, right under the switch, sits Sources per network: a matrix with one row per connected network and one column per type — Comments, Messages, Mentions. You pick network by network and type by type, so you can bring in Instagram comments without bringing in its DMs, for instance. Turning a source off stops new items; whatever was already imported stays in the tray.

Why one row per person and not per post?

Because who you're answering is a person, not a post. In the Conversations view each row is one commenter's thread —their comment plus the replies hanging from it— or a direct message conversation. A busy post is therefore many conversations, one per person, and you stop replying to someone thinking you're talking to somebody else.

When what you want is to moderate a whole piece of content, switch to Posts with the View selector in the toolbar. Each row is a post with how many comments are Unanswered; opening it lists that post's commenter threads. Reply answers without leaving the post, Open in Conversations takes you to the full thread, and Mark all as resolved closes that post's pending ones in one go.

How do I work the tray day to day?

• Pick the folder from the selector on the left of the toolbar: All, Unread, Assigned to me, Needs attention, Replied, Resolved, Snoozed, Archived and Spam. Each one carries its own counter.
• Narrow it down with Filters: Network, Account, Type (direct message, comment, mention), Sentiment, Assignee, Labels and CRM (with Hide CRM conversations). Whatever is active stays visible as chips under the toolbar, so you never wonder why a conversation isn't showing.
• Use the search box for the text of a message or the name of who wrote it. It filters over the batch of conversations already loaded, not over your whole history, so pair it with a folder and a filter instead of using it as an archive search.
• Open a conversation and write in the reply box. On an Instagram or Facebook comment you also get Private message (DM) to take the chat private, and Internal note to leave context for your team — type @ there to mention a teammate.
• Insert saved reply drops in one of your snippets, with its variables and tone. You create and edit them in Settings > Saved replies, and they're the fastest way to stop rewriting the same answer ten times a day.
• Then close the loop: Assign gives it an owner, Label classifies it, Snooze takes it out of sight until later today, tomorrow or next week, Resolve calls it done, and Mark spam or Archive get it out of the way. You can select several rows and apply the action in bulk, and Sync now forces a pass if you'd rather not wait for the automatic one.

Can I see the photos, audio messages and stories people send me by direct message?

Yes. Direct messages from Instagram, Facebook (Messenger) and TikTok bring their files into the conversation, above the text: photos open in a viewer where the arrows take you through every photo in the conversation, videos and audio messages play right there, documents download, and stickers show up too. In the list, the row adds the file's icon and, if the message has no text, a label such as Image, Audio or Replied to your story. If the conversation belongs to the CRM, the same files show up in CRM > Messages.

Where each file lives depends on the network. Files from Facebook (Messenger) and TikTok are saved in MB Suite, so they don't expire. Instagram doesn't allow saving them: MB Suite shows them from Instagram's own link for as long as Instagram serves it, and when it stops loading you'll see a notice saying the file is no longer available on Instagram. Stories come with their own notice —Mentioned you in their story when someone mentions your brand in one of theirs, Replied to your story when someone answers one of yours—, and since a story lasts 24 hours, an Instagram story stops showing once it expires.

When someone shares a post and the network delivers the link, you get a card with Open. But some content isn't delivered through the network's API —for example, a shared reel or post, or a GIF— and some messages arrive empty, such as a like or a message the person deleted. In those cases you see a notice instead of the file: to see it, open the conversation in the network's app.

This applies to messages received once the Inbox started showing files: older ones stay as they were, without the file —if they had no text, they say No text—, and to see them you have to go to the network's app. On Messenger and TikTok, while a file is being saved you see Saving the file…, and it shows up on its own when it's done; whatever sits in Spam isn't saved until it leaves Spam. If a file couldn't be saved, you'll see We couldn't save this file. In that case, look at it in the network's app.

Why did a message end up in Spam?

Besides what you or a rule mark, whatever is detected as spam the moment it arrives goes straight to Spam: what the Analyst classifies that way in the sources within its territory and, wherever it isn't working, what a basic filter with no AI sets aside — that one only catches obvious spam. A message that goes straight to Spam doesn't show up in All, doesn't generate alerts, and neither rules nor the Community Manager touch it, so it's worth checking the folder now and then. If you find something that wasn't spam, open it and press Mark spam again: it leaves Spam and goes back to the tray.

In direct messages, the Analyst judges each message together with the earlier ones in the conversation, knowing it's a private message to a business: a greeting, "info", "price", a phone number, an email, a link to their website or asking for your WhatsApp aren't spam; phishing, scams, crypto or investment pitches, mass advertising and unsolicited service offers are. Comments and mentions, on the other hand, are judged each on its own.

What keyboard shortcuts does it have?

• j and k move down and up the list, in both views.
• r focuses the reply box and e archives the open conversation — both in the Conversations view.
• f opens Filters and / jumps to the search box.
• ⌘ Enter (or Ctrl Enter) sends the reply you're writing.

How do I know if we're answering fast enough?

The Performance tab measures the range you choose: Received, Replied, Resolved, Avg. first response and Pending reply, broken down By channel and By agent. It's how you spot which network is costing you the most and how the load is shared. AI positions show up in By agent like any other agent; the first-response time, on the other hand, measures the first human reply, so hiring an AI Community Manager doesn't flatter that number on its own.

How do I find out something came in?

With the bell in the top bar. In Settings > Notifications you pick which ones you want — they're your personal preferences, not the account's: New incoming message, Conversation assigned to me and AI escalation. There's a fourth alert that doesn't depend on those switches: the one a rule fires with its Notify action, because someone being named in a rule is a stronger signal than a general preference.

Who can touch what?

Replying, assigning, labelling and archiving is everyday work for any member. The General, Team, AI Team and Rules sections of the settings are only visible to owners and admins — they decide what gets ingested and what answers on its own. Saved replies, Labels and Notifications are open to the whole team.

What's next?

Two paths worth taking. Hire an AI Community Manager so it drafts the reply or answers on its own within the territory you give it — define your tone once in Brand Voice first, so it writes like your brand. And when a conversation turns commercial, send it to the CRM instead of leaving it buried in the tray. In Settings > Rules you can also automate without AI at all: same words, same result — label, assign, archive, mark spam or reply with a fixed text. A rule can also apply only Inside working hours or Outside working hours of the slots you set, and a slot can cross midnight (from 22:00 to 06:00).