Edit Threads and Notes
Each portion of a conversation in Help Scout is called a thread. A customer email that starts a conversation is the first thread, a Help Scout user reply would be a separate thread, and a note left by a user a different thread. Most threads in Help Scout have three little vertical dots to the right of the timestamp. Use this menu to perform actions that will only affect a single reply or note within a conversation.
You must have the permissions Edit threads and Edit notes to take these actions. See User Roles and Permissions for more on that.
In this article
Customer Threads
All customer threads will show the options Edit, Hide, and New Conversation, whether their original source was an email, the API, an integration, or a message sent from Beacon.
Show Original will be available for any email threads created within the last 2 years.
Edit
Edit a thread when you want to exclude specific content from the previous message in your reply. As an example, if a customer included credit card information in their email to you, to protect your customer, you don't want to reply with that number still in the email. Edit the thread to remove that from their message, and when you reply they will receive the edited version with your reply.
You might also want to use the Edit option to truncate a long response or remove extra information, for example a long string of code you don't need, a long block of text that isn't relevant, or any content that you just don't want to see in the conversation in Help Scout.
Attachments will appear below the content when editing. Hold your mouse over the file name and you'll see an X you can click to delete that attachment from the thread.
You'll see a note indicating that the thread was edited, showing the user that made the edit and when, with a link to Show Original. Any attachments deleted will no longer be available in the thread, but the original text will be available for all users to view.
Keep in mind that the full email source will still be visible with the Show Original option from the menu for 2 years. All Help Scout users are able to view that and download a copy of the original message source that will include any attachments as well.
Editing a thread and removing text or attachments is not a complete deletion from Help Scout. To completely delete any text or attachments you will need to delete the entire conversation instead.
Hide
Hide a thread when you want to prevent that thread from being a part of your reply. After you hide a thread, that thread will no longer be included in the previous reply on your response to the customer. Hiding a thread only affects what the customer sees in your response - it will still be visible in your account on both the conversation and Reports.
Hiding a thread can be useful if the customer sent sensitive information in their original email that you'd rather not send back in your reply.
A hidden thread will be collapsed by default, will appear as grayed out in the conversation, and will show a badge that says Hidden. To restore a hidden thread, select Unhide from the thread options menu.
New Conversation
Use New Conversation to split that specific customer email into a new conversation in Help Scout. For example, if a customer emails multiple unrelated questions (in one conversation), you might want to turn those comments in to new conversations for reporting or to assign to different members of your team.
Show Original
Here you are able to inspect the original email headers, look for inline replies that weren't pulled into the thread, or download the original full source of the email. Remember the original will show the full email, even if you've edited what's showing in Help Scout.
The original headers and email source are stored for 2 years for incoming emails. The original email source cannot be deleted from the conversation.
User Threads
User threads will only show the Edit and Hide options, which work exactly the same as they do in the customer threads, as described above.
Notes
A note offers the opportunity to Edit or Delete. Edit here is a bit different than customer or user threads — we don't keep the original text on notes, only who last edited the note and when.
If you delete a note, the note is removed without any indication that it had been there.
