> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cortex.foundation/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Conversations
> Start, name, edit, branch, pin, archive, delete and search your Chat threads, and what a temporary chat does differently
Every exchange in Cortex Chat lives in a conversation, and conversations accumulate. This page covers the whole life of one: starting it, changing a message you already sent, moving between alternative answers, keeping the list in order, finding a thread weeks later, and deleting it when you are done.
It also covers the things a reader usually goes looking for and does not find: renaming a chat, exporting a whole conversation, sharing one, and a view that lists archived chats. Each of those is called out plainly below rather than left as a hunt.
## Start a chat
**New chat** in the sidebar is an action rather than a place. It clears the composer, and the conversation itself is created by your first message: the home page turns into the thread in place, without a reload, and the link in your address bar becomes a stable identifier for it.
The title arrives on its own. Until it does the row reads **New chat**, then **Naming this chat…** while the title is written, and then the generated title. The title is never put in the link, so a conversation link stays an identifier no matter what the chat ends up being called. If the title cannot be saved you see **The title could not be saved. The thread is unchanged.**, and nothing else about the conversation changes.
A chat cannot be renamed. The app refuses with **Chat titles cannot be renamed yet — this app has no route for it.** If a title bothers you, the practical answer is to start a fresh chat with a clearer first message. The **Rename session** control you may have seen belongs to [Cortex Code](/code/sessions) sessions, not to Chat.
## The composer, beyond typing
Typing `/` opens a short palette of things a new message can be:
| Item | What it does |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| **Temporary** | Starts a new chat that is not saved to Recents |
| **Deep Research** | Plans the questions, then writes a cited report |
| **Image** | Prefills a request for a generated picture |
| **Canvas** | Opens a document beside the conversation |
Three composer behaviours are worth knowing before you meet them.
* **Offline.** With no network the box reads **You are offline — your message will wait here** and a toast promises **Sending when back online**. Leave the chat before it goes and it is dropped: **A waiting message was discarded because you left this chat.**
* **Steer this reply.** Add a course correction while Cortex is still writing, instead of waiting for it to finish.
* **Queue a follow-up…** holds your next message until the current answer is done, as a **Queued follow-up** chip. **Return queued follow-up to the composer** takes it back.
When standing instructions are in play, the composer shows **Custom instructions on**.
## Change your mind about a message
Nothing in a conversation is destroyed by changing your mind. Messages form a tree, and both controls below add a path rather than overwrite one.
Hover your own message and choose edit. The banner reads **Editing · original kept as Branch 1**. Change the text and press **Send as branch**, or **Cancel**.
Afterwards the banner counts which branch you are on out of how many exist, with the reassurance **Original kept**, and you move between them from there.
Choose **Regenerate** on the answer. The previous answer is kept as a version, and a pager appears showing which version you are reading out of the total, with **Previous version** and **Next version**. It is hidden while there is only one version.
Switching versions changes which answer is live, and therefore everything that follows from it.
**Branch** in the conversation header opens a new chat carrying the pill **Branched from another chat**, so you can take a thread in a second direction without disturbing the first. Where the deployment does not serve it: **Branching from a message is not on this deployment.**
Both editing and regenerating are refused while an answer is being written, with **Wait until the current answer finishes.** Stop the answer first, or wait for it.
## Pin, archive and delete
| Task | How | What happens |
| -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Pin to top** | The chat's actions | It moves to the **PINNED** section |
| **Unpin** | The same menu | It returns to **RECENTS** |
| Archive | The sidebar row action | It leaves Recents immediately. The toast says **Chat archived** and offers **Undo** |
| Restore | **Undo** on that toast | The toast confirms **Chat restored** |
| Delete | The chat's actions, then **Delete chat** in the dialog | Permanent. The toast says **Chat deleted** |
Pins are capped at 20, shared between chats and projects. Past that, pinning is refused with **You have 20 pinned chats and projects. Unpin one before pinning another.**
Archiving and deleting are not the same thing, and the difference matters:
* Archiving only removes a chat from Recents. There is no archived view, filter or page anywhere in the app, so treat archiving as hiding a thread rather than as filing it somewhere you can browse later. An archived chat can still be reached from Chat search.
* Deleting is irreversible. The dialog is explicit about it: **Deleting removes the conversation and its messages. This cannot be undone.** Files you uploaded stay in [Library](/chat/library).
## How Recents groups your threads
The sidebar keeps three sections: **WORKSPACE**, **PINNED** (drawn only once you have pinned something) and **RECENTS**. Recents can be grouped three ways.
| Grouping | Result |
| ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **None** | One flat list, newest first |
| **Day** | Buckets labelled **TODAY**, **YESTERDAY**, **THIS WEEK** and **EARLIER** |
| **Project** | One bucket per project, plus **UNFILED** for everything outside one |
Threads are also separated into **Chats** and **Research**, so a research run does not bury your ordinary conversations. To move a chat into a project, use **Move to project** under **More chat actions**; see [Projects](/chat/projects).
## Find a conversation
Press Cmd or Ctrl with K anywhere in Chat to open Chat search, and type into **Search chats, library, and skills**. Results come back in three groups, **Chats**, **Library** and **Skills**, with up to eight hits each. Arrow keys move, Enter opens, and **Close search** dismisses it. With an empty query the palette lists **Recent chats**, so opening it is useful even before you type. If it cannot run you see **Search could not run.**
Two things to expect from it:
* **It searches titles, not messages.** Message bodies are stored encrypted and are not indexed, so a phrase from inside an answer will not find the thread. Search for what the conversation was about instead.
* **It does not hide archived or temporary chats.** Either can appear in results even though neither is listed in Recents.
This palette belongs to Chat; Cortex Code has its own on the same keys.
## Find something inside the open conversation
Open **Search in this conversation** and type into **Search this conversation**. A counter shows which match you are on out of how many there are. **Previous match** and **Next match** step through them, as do Enter and Shift with Enter. **Clear search** empties the field and **Close search** puts the bar away; Escape does both in turn, clearing first and closing on a second press.
If there is nothing to find you get **No matches in this conversation.** and a useful hint: **Try a shorter word, or a term from the answer rather than the question.**
## Temporary chats
A temporary chat is for a question you do not want to keep.
| Behaviour | Detail |
| ---------------- | ------------------------ |
| Where it appears | Not listed in Recents |
| Memory | Neither read nor written |
| Lifetime | Deleted after 30 days |
| Pin and Move | Hidden for this chat |
Start one from the `/` palette or the composer's **Temporary chat** toggle, before the first message. The choice is fixed at that point: **Temporary is chosen when a chat starts.** You cannot make a normal chat temporary afterwards, and you cannot promote a temporary chat into a permanent one. A **Temporary** badge in the header tells you which kind you are in. Filing one into a project is refused with **A Temporary chat cannot be filed into a project.**
## Not available yet
Three things people reasonably look for do not exist in Chat today.
* **Renaming a chat.** Titles are generated and cannot be edited.
* **Exporting a whole conversation.** There is no control for it. What you can export is a single answer, as a deck; see [Export documents](/chat/document-export).
* **Sharing a conversation.** The **Share** control does not produce a link, and Chat has no shared threads. **Copy link to message** gives you a link that opens the conversation at one message for anyone who already has access to it, which on a per-account product means you. See [Sharing and teams](/chat/sharing).
## Shortcuts
| Keys | What it does |
| ------------------------------------ | ----------------------------- |
| Cmd or Ctrl with K | Open Chat search |
| Cmd or Ctrl with / | Open the shortcut sheet |
| Escape | Stop the answer being written |
| Cmd or Ctrl with Shift and E | Archive the current chat |
| Cmd or Ctrl with Shift and Backspace | Delete the current chat |
The last two work but are not printed on the shortcut sheet. The full list for every product is on [Keyboard shortcuts](/getting-started/keyboard-shortcuts).
## Related
* [Chat quickstart](/chat/quickstart) - your first conversation, step by step.
* [How Chat works](/chat/how-it-works) - what one turn does, and what is stored.
* [Models and thinking](/chat/models) - why the model is fixed once a chat starts.
* [Projects](/chat/projects) - file related chats together under shared instructions.
* [Sharing and teams](/chat/sharing) - what you can hand to someone else today.