Customize Shopify Inbox chat settings and appearance

You can customize the appearance of the chat and the instant answers that are available to your customers. You can also configure whether customers need to sign in before chatting with your staff.

Customer sign-in setting

Inbox includes a Require sign-in to chat with staff setting, turned on by default for new installations and for stores that receive the latest version of Inbox. If you previously turned it off, then it stays off. When it's turned on, customers sign in with a Shop account before they can chat with your staff. To learn more about how customer sign-in affects conversations, refer to Managing customer conversations.

Turn on online store chat

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.

2. Click Edit theme next to the theme that you want to edit.

3. Select App embeds, and then select Online store chat.

4. Turn on Online store chat.

5. Click Save.

Add a profile picture

You can personalize your online store chat appearance by adding a profile picture to Shopify Inbox. Your Shopify Inbox avatar uses the picture from your account settings. You can change your profile picture by updating your account details in your Shopify profile.

Steps:

1. From Shopify Inbox, go to Settings > Message preferences.
2. In the Avatar section, check Use admin profile picture.

Customize your brand, chat button, and greeting message

You can customize the chat's design, including its color, typography, activator button, and activator button position, in addition to the greeting message that is displayed when your staff handle conversations. If your Inbox agent is turned on and assigned to conversations, then the greeting message is still managed in the theme editor. If you leave it blank, then an automatic greeting is displayed based on your store name and whether the customer is signed in.

Note

When your staff are handling conversations, the default greeting message automatically translates to your customer's browser language. If you customize your greeting message, then it no longer translates.

The updated chat defaults to a white background with black text. Your existing position carries over, so the chat stays in the same corner of the screen. You can personalize the chat from your theme editor.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.

2. Click Edit theme next to the theme that you want to edit.

3. Select App embeds, and then select Online store chat.

4. Do any of the following:

   • In the Colors section, set the Background and Font color by selecting a color or entering a hexadecimal code.
   • In the Activator section, select an Icon and Label for the chat button, and set its Horizontal position and Vertical position on your online store.
   • In the Typography section, choose whether the chat inherits its font from your theme.
   • In the Borders section, adjust the Border radius to change how rounded the chat's corners are.
   • Turn on Show featured products to display products on the chat's empty state, then select the products to feature.
   • In the Greeting message text box, enter the message that you want to display to customers.

5. Click Save.

Note

You can also open these settings by selecting Edit on the Shopify Inbox page in your admin. This opens the theme editor and starts a Sidekick chat that can help match your chat's colors to your theme.

During the rollout of the updated chat, you might still have a Colors (legacy) section that applies to the previous chat. This section is removed after your store moves to the updated chat.