Chat & AI
Using threads
Highlight part of a message and ask about just that in a side conversation, without derailing the main chat.
Step 1
Highlight to start one
Select at least a few characters in any message, yours or the AI's, and press Ask about this on the small toolbar that appears. A thread is a separate conversation seeded with the exact text you highlighted and the message it came from, so the AI knows what "this" means. Threads are private: in a shared or hub chat, everyone can start their own threads, and only they can see them.
Step 2
The thread opens beside the chat
The panel shows the quoted text at the top, then the thread's own messages, with its own box to keep asking. It uses the chat's model and the documents the chat has that you can open, and nothing you say in it lands in the main chat. The arrow at the top left goes back to the list of threads.
“the Q3 numbers”
Step 3
The highlight stays in the chat
Back in the chat the phrase stays marked in yellow. Press it any time to reopen that thread; opening a thread scrolls to its highlight and flashes it.
3:42 PMStep 4
Threads inside threads
Highlight text inside a thread and Ask about this makes a sub-thread. Its chip appears under the thread header, and the colour tells you how deep you are: yellow at the top, purple one level in, blue beyond that.
“the Q3 numbers”
Step 5
Open the thread panel
The thread button in the chat header carries a count. Press it to open or close the panel.
Q3 results review
Step 6
The list of threads
The panel lists each of your threads as a card with its quote, filtered by All or Pinned; Pinned also keeps a thread when one of its sub-threads is pinned. Under the Threads heading a count reads, for example, 3 threads, including 1 sub-thread. Open thread opens it; the pin and the bin appear when you hover a card. The buttons at the top right go Fullscreen, where Source message above the thread opens the original message with its formatting, Float the panel as a window you can move and resize, or Close it. Docked, you can drag its left edge to resize.
Threads
3 threads
the Q3 numbers
EMEA the main contributor
ahead of the 9 percent plan
Step 7
When something goes wrong
If a thread does not load, the panel says This thread could not be loaded. with Try again. If a question fails to send, a row under the messages gives the reason and Try again; when credits run out it links to Open billing or Open usage settings instead. Files you attach show as chips with their names. A chip says when a file is still being read, and a file that could not be uploaded keeps a red chip with the reason until you dismiss it.
“the Q3 numbers”
Step 8
Pin the ones worth keeping
Threads stay out of your chat list so it does not fill up. Pin one, from the card or from the thread, and it appears as an indented row under its chat, with a count badge on the chat that expands and collapses them. Hover a pinned row for the cross that unpins it.
Chats
Q3 results review
Onboarding checklist
Step 9
Unpin or delete
Unpinning only removes the row from the list; the thread is still in the panel. Delete, from the bin on a card, asks for a confirmation and removes the thread and its messages for good.
Delete thread
Try it in Secretary, or create an account to get started.
Related guides
Starting a new chat
The start screen, starter prompts, temporary chats, and what New chat does once you are already in a conversation.
Attaching files to a chat message
Add a file from your computer so the AI can read it: press the paperclip, drag it in, or paste it.
Scoping a chat to specific documents or folders
Point the AI at exactly the files in your library it should answer from, and choose how deeply it reads them.