Reply to a customer

Everything you can send from a chat in Conversations — a typed reply, a photo or file, a voice note, or an approved template — and what to do when WhatsApp will only carry a template.

Send a reply

The smiley button, in that same row under the field, opens an emoji picker above the field. It stays open while you pick, so you can add several in a row, and each glyph lands where your cursor is rather than at the end of the message.

Send a photo, video or file

1. Click + under the field and choose Photo, video or file. Your own device’s picker opens, so on an iPhone you get Photo Library, Take Photo or Choose File.
2. The file uploads as soon as you pick it. The + shows a busy ring but stays usable.
3. It appears as a tile above the reply field, with its thumbnail and size where we know them, and an ✕ to take it off again. Click the tile to preview it.
4. Type a caption if you want one, then press Send.

A picked file waits above the field until you press Send — it has not gone anywhere yet

One file per message. To send three photos, send three messages.

Recent uploads, the second item on the + menu, lists what you have already sent from this number, by filename and type — so the same price list goes out again without digging through your phone. The list is re-fetched every time you open it, so something you uploaded a minute ago is already in it. Voice notes are deliberately not kept there.

There is no size or type limit to check before you pick. If a file cannot be sent, the reason appears in a red row inside the composer — usually WhatsApp’s own words — with an ✕ to dismiss it.

Record a voice message

When the reply field is empty, the button where Send normally sits is a microphone instead. Type one character and it turns into Send; clear the field and the microphone comes back. There is only ever one button in that slot, and it is always the one that commits.

1. With the field empty, press the microphone.
2. The composer becomes a recording row — a pulsing red dot, a running timer, the line Recording — tap stop to review it., and a Cancel button. The microphone is now a red Stop.
3. Press Stop. The clip uploads at that moment and is staged as a player, the same one a sent voice note uses, with an ✕ to discard it. Press play and listen to it before you commit.
4. Press Send.

A clip stops itself at 5 minutes, and 16 MB is the ceiling. Because the upload happens when you press Stop rather than when you press Send, a clip that is too large says so before you have committed to sending it.

The reply field and the +, template and emoji buttons all disappear while you are recording and while a clip is staged. That is deliberate: WhatsApp does not accept a caption on an audio message, so a voice note cannot carry text. Send the words as a second message.

Send a template

A template is a message WhatsApp has approved in advance. You can send one at any time, and when the composer is locked it is the only thing you can send.

1. Click the speech-bubble icon in the row of buttons under the reply field — its label is Send template. On a locked composer, use Choose template on the bar instead.
2. Send a template opens. Pick one from the list on the left. Each row shows its name, its category, its language, and either · ready to send or · 2 values to fill. Only approved templates are listed.
3. Fill the values on the right. They are grouped under Header, Body values, and — for a template with a button — that button’s own text followed by the word button. Every field is labelled with the token it fills: {{1}}, {{2}} and so on. A button’s tokens start again at {{1}} rather than carrying on from the body’s numbering.
4. Read the Preview underneath. It is drawn as a real WhatsApp bubble, with your business name and number on it.
5. Click Send template.

The Preview is the message as the customer will receive it — read it before you send

Where a template has a field mapping, values arrive already filled in from that contact’s own record, and only into empty boxes, so nothing you have typed is overwritten.

While any value is still blank, Send template is disabled and a hint reads Fill all values to enable send. A template with nothing to fill says This template has no placeholders — review the preview and send.

A template with an image or file at the top

Some templates carry an image, video or document as their header. You can paste a public link to it in the field, or press Upload to send a file from the device. Once it has uploaded, the row shows the filename with an ✕ and the note This file is sent as the header for this message only.

If the template was approved with a file saved against it, that link is already filled in and the note says so. Change it and the note becomes Using a different image for this send. followed by a Use the saved one link and the saved file’s name — so putting it back is one click. The noun follows the header’s own type, so a document header reads document and a video one video.

Nothing in the list

No approved templates, with Approve a template on the Templates page before sending one here., means there is no approved template on the number this chat is on. Approval is per number, so a template that works on your sales number may not exist yet on your support one.

When a template is all you can send

If the reply field has been replaced by a bar across the bottom reading 24h reply window closed, with a Choose template button, nothing is broken. WhatsApp has closed the window.

The bar takes the composer's place — the messages above end at it instead of scrolling under it

The info glyph on that bar explains it in the app’s own words:

WhatsApp closes the reply window 24 hours after the customer’s last message.

To continue the conversation:

• Send an approved template
• Wait for the customer to message again
• Reply from your WhatsApp Business app

A closed window shows no countdown at all — the bar is the signal. The 3h left pill in the header only ever appears while the window is still open and has three hours or less to run, so its absence means nothing on its own.

This can also happen while you are sitting in the chat: if a send comes back saying the window has expired, the composer switches to the bar there and then.

An empty chat with a closed window reads No messages yet, with The 24-hour reply window is closed, so the first message has to be a template. underneath.

There is a second version of the bar, Template only until they reply, for a contact who has never written to you — nothing has expired, the conversation simply has not started. You meet that one in the chat drawer opened from a contact’s record, rather than in the inbox.

Take over from the AI

When an AI agent or an automation is handling a contact, a thin strip sits between the header and the messages and says so. A chat with no automation on it shows no strip at all, which is most of them.

The strip names your own agent wherever it can. Where it cannot, it falls back to AI agent is handling this conversation and AI is on.

The strip sits between the header and the messages, with its button on the right

The buttons say as much themselves. On an AI strip, Take over reads Pauses AI replies, auto-replies, follow-ups and campaigns to this contact. Messages you send still go out. and Hand back reads Let the AI, auto-replies, follow-ups and campaigns message this contact again. On a strip that is only about a follow-up, Take over reads Pauses follow-ups, auto-replies and campaigns to this contact. Messages you send still go out. You get AI paused for this contact. or AI resumed for this contact. to confirm the change.

The state can flip while you are watching it. It is one shared switch per contact: a teammate turning it off from the contact’s record, the customer sending STOP, or somebody typing the pause keyword into WhatsApp on the business’s own phone all move the same thing, and the strip re-reads it live.

If Outbound control is not part of your role, the strip still tells you the state but you cannot change it. On an AI strip the button becomes an information tooltip, explaining that pausing the AI for a contact needs the Outbound control permission and that an admin can do it from Integrations → WhatsApp → Outbound control. On a strip that is only about a follow-up, the button becomes View, which opens the contact’s record where every sequence they are in is listed.

A second strip, when something needs fixing

Under the first strip, one more can appear for something that needs a repair rather than a pause. Both carry a Fix button that opens the contact’s record, which is there whenever that contact has a record to open:

• a follow-up that did not enrol, or that stopped, with the reason
• Campaign message held back and the campaign’s name — a campaign send that never went out because a field it needed was empty. A message that was never sent leaves no bubble in the chat, so this strip is the only sign of it. Fill the field in on the record, then retry the send from Campaigns.

If a message does not go out

Next

• Find and read a conversationConversations is the shared WhatsApp inbox for your workspace.→
• Create a WhatsApp message templateA campaign can only send a template that Meta has reviewed and approved —→
• Stop automated messages reaching a contactSome people should never get an automated message: the customer who asked you to→