Can I search through past conversations?

Yes. The merchant dashboard includes search so you can find prior interactions quickly instead of scrolling through closed threads or asking customers to repeat themselves.

What you can search

Simple Chat supports two complementary search paths:

• Message search — Search across message content in all conversations. Use this when you remember phrasing (“damaged heel”, “coupon code”, “exchange label”) but not which ticket it belonged to.
• Customer search — Find shoppers by customer-related fields so you can open their conversation history from one place.

Together, these cover the two most common support lookups: “What did we say?” and “Who is this person across tickets?”

When search is most useful

Search helps in everyday scenarios such as:

• A returning customer references an old order issue and you need the prior thread before replying.
• A manager audits how agents handled a product defect theme last month.
• You are verifying whether the AI already answered a policy question for this shopper.

Open search from the dashboard inbox area (use the search entry point in the sidebar workflow). Run your query, open the matching conversation or customer, and continue in the full thread view with order and customer context still attached.

Tips for faster results

• Start with distinctive keywords (SKU, error text, email snippet) rather than generic words like “order”.
• If message search surfaces multiple hits, open the most recent match first, then scan earlier threads only if the issue is long-running.
• Pair search with pinning for customers who contact you often—search finds history; pinning keeps active work visible.

Search is available to staff with dashboard access; it respects your store’s normal Simple Chat permissions like the rest of the inbox.