---
title: Portal Messages
description: How clients read and send messages to your team from the portal, which conversations they can see, and who gets notified.
icon: messages-square
---

Each project in the portal has a **Messages** page where clients talk with your team. Conversations stay attached to the project, so everyone has the same history.

## What clients can see

- **Clients and team** conversations, shared with everyone on the project who has portal access.
- **Specific people** conversations they were added to. If they are added later, they can read the earlier messages too; if they are removed, they lose access right away.
- Conversations on tasks assigned to them. These are marked **Task**.
- Attachments that are shared with the portal.

Clients never see **Team only** conversations or messages your team marked as internal. See [Project Messages](/docs/projects/messages).

## How the conversation list works

The list on the left shows the project's conversations, most recent first. Each one shows:

- its title, or **Untitled conversation**, and the date of the last message;
- a preview of the last message with the sender's first name, for example "Daniel: The homepage draft is ready for you", or "You:" for the client's own message;
- the people in it, a **Task** tag for task conversations, and a lock for **Specific people** conversations;
- a dot and bold title while it has unread messages.

On a large screen the first conversation opens next to the list. Opening a conversation marks it as read. **Load more** shows older conversations.

## How clients use portal messages

1. Open a project in the portal and select **Messages**.
2. Search conversations by typing in **Search conversations**.
3. Select a conversation to read it and reply. The header shows who is in it; the details button shows the project, who the conversation is visible to, its task, and its people.
4. Type a reply and click **Send**. Below the box, the portal says who will be notified, for example "Daniel and Priya will be notified", or "Your project team will see this" when no one else has been added yet.
5. Type `@` to mention someone who is already in the conversation. Mentions notify people; they don't give anyone access.
6. To start a new conversation, click **New message**, optionally add a **Subject**, write the message, and attach files if needed. Everyone on the project can read it.

Messages are grouped by day so long conversations are easy to scan.