Where to find your past chats with Otto (it's now called Chat history)

You had a long conversation with Otto, you closed the tab, and now you cannot find it again. One performer wrote in and asked us to build a menu item we could click and see a log of our previous chats, and the honest answer was that the app had been keeping that list all along, under a heading he had never spotted. Since version 1.11.3 that list is called Chat history, and it starts open at the bottom of the left sidebar instead of hiding behind a small collapsed toggle called Recent. This article covers where the list is, what it can and cannot do, and what to check when your previous chats are not showing.

Where Chat history is

Chat history sits at the bottom of the left panel in the app, in the same rail as Workflows, Automations and Open a file. There is no menu item for it and no separate screen, so if you have been opening the menus in the top bar looking for a history entry, that is a dead end. Stop hunting up there and look down the left instead.

On the current version the section is already open. If yours is collapsed, click the words Chat history and it opens up. The app remembers that choice, so if you prefer the panel tidy you can collapse it once and it stays that way until you click the heading again.

What each row tells you

• The chat's name. If you have never named it, the app uses the first thing you typed in that conversation, so most rows read like your own opening question. A chat with nothing usable to go on shows as Untitled session.
• How long ago you last worked in it, written plainly: just now, 12m ago, 3h ago, 2d ago. So can I see what I asked Otto yesterday is an easy one: the chat you want is a row marked 1d ago, usually near the top, because the list is newest first.
• How many messages are in it. Hover over a row and the tooltip tells you the message count along with a reminder that right-clicking renames it. That count is often the fastest way to tell two similar looking chats apart.
• A Continue arrow on the right, because clicking a row does not start something new. It picks up the same conversation.

Reopen, search and rename

1. Reopen a chat. Click the row. The conversation opens in its own task tab in Chat, with the earlier messages replayed above the message box, and you carry on where you left off.
2. Find a past chat. Type into the Search by name box at the top of the list. It narrows the list as you type. If nothing matches you get No conversations match that name rather than a blank panel, so you always know the search ran.
3. Rename a chat. Right-click the row and choose Rename. The name turns into an editable field in place: type the new one, press Enter to commit or Esc to cancel. Naming the two or three conversations you keep returning to is worth the ten seconds. It is what makes this list readable a month from now.
4. Refresh the list. It re-reads itself roughly every ten seconds on its own. If you want it updated this second, Refresh sits at the right-hand end of the Chat history heading.

If clicking a row answers with Could not reopen that conversation. Close a task tab and try again. then nothing is wrong with the chat itself. You already have the maximum of six task tabs open. Hover one of them, click the ✕ that appears on the tab, then click the row again.

What the list will not do

These surprise people, so they are worth knowing before you go looking for a setting that does not exist.

• It shows your twelve most recent conversations, not all of them. Older ones fall off the bottom as new chats arrive, and there is no setting that makes the list longer.
• The search box searches names only. It does not read inside your conversation history for a phrase you remember saying, so searching for words from the middle of a chat will not find it. Search for the name you gave it, or for the opening line, since that is what unnamed chats are titled with.
• The right-click menu offers Rename and nothing else. There is no delete and no way to pin a chat to the top of the list.

Where did my chat go?

When performers write in asking where are my old conversations, it is nearly always one of these four things.

1. The whole left panel is hidden. The sidebar can be dragged narrower or hidden outright, and when it is hidden there is nothing to see at the bottom of it. Look for the small chevron button on the seam at the left edge of the window, labelled Show the workflows panel, and click it. Double-clicking that seam puts the panel back to its original width.
2. Chat history is collapsed. Click the Chat history heading and the list opens under it.
3. You pointed the app at a different Booking HQ folder. Your conversation history is kept per folder, so switching folders swaps the list along with it. The old chats are not deleted. They belong to the folder they were created in and they come back the moment the app is pointed at that folder again.
4. There genuinely are none yet on this computer. A fresh install shows No conversations yet. Message Otto to start one. Past chats live on the computer they happened on, so they do not follow you to a second machine.

If your sidebar still says Recent

On builds older than 1.11.3 the same list is there, in the same place at the bottom of the left panel, but it is labelled Recent and it starts collapsed. That collapse is the entire reason it was so easy to miss, and it is why a working performer filed a request for a feature the app already had. Click the word Recent and the list opens up. Everything above works the same way on the old label: click to reopen, right-click to rename, search box to filter.

To get the current version, click Check for updates next to the logo in the top bar, install what it offers, then look at the bottom of the sidebar again. The heading will read Chat history and it will already be open.

The rest of the left sidebar

Chat history is the bottom of the rail. Here is the rest of that panel, top to bottom, because it is all one strip and it is always visible no matter which tab you are on.

Workflows: one tap to a money play

The Workflows section starts out with Learn My Voice plus your top three money plays (for example Fill the Room, First Contact and Silence Patrol). Clicking one quick-launches it: the app opens the Plays tab and runs that play, so a workflow you use daily is never more than one click away.

The menu is yours to change. Press Edit menu and each row grows a drag handle, up and down arrows, and a remove button. Add another from the Add workflow list underneath, or choose Create a new workflow to write your own one-tap job with a name and a description of what it should do. Restore the original menu puts the defaults back, and Done leaves edit mode.

Automations: your standing work, with live status

Each row says what it does and whether it is currently on.

• Autopilot: Turn on / Turn off. Turning it on walks through the Autopilot flow (it is an Otto-tier feature and asks about EPIN membership before the task chooser).
• Autonomous booking: Start / Stop for fully autonomous booking, with a confirm step before anything starts.
• Inbound replies: Review opens the Inbox, where drafted replies wait for your eyes.
• Scheduled tasks: Manage opens Settings, and the row shows a live count of how many schedules are switched on.

Open a file: by name or by description

Expand Open a file and you get a small finder that saves you digging through folders.

1. Type a filename or path into the field.
2. If you only remember roughly what the file is, switch on Find with AI (describe it) and describe it in your own words instead. The field's prompt changes to Describe the file.
3. Switch on Open file location if you want the folder rather than the file itself.
4. Press the button. Its label follows your toggles: Open, Find it and open, or, with Open file location on, Show in folder on Windows and Reveal in Finder on a Mac.

Between the workflow buttons at the top and Chat history at the bottom, this rail is the fastest way to start work and the fastest way to get back to work you already started.

If it still does not work

If you have updated to the current version, the sidebar is showing, and a conversation you know you had is still not in the list, we want to hear about it. Tell us the name of the chat, or the first thing you typed in it, roughly when you had it, and whether you have changed your Booking HQ folder since. Still stuck? Submit a ticket from this help center and we'll take it from there.