Bolter on your phone

Bolter has an iPhone app and an Android app, and it also runs in a mobile browser. The apps exist mainly so notifications reach you reliably.

Bolter runs in a mobile browser, and there is also a real iPhone app and a real Android app. All three show the same Bolter and the same account: whichever you open, your chats, agents and workspaces are the ones you already have.

Getting the app

The iPhone app is on the App Store and the Android app is on Google Play, both under the name Bolter. Install it, sign in the way you sign in on a computer, and you are where you left off.

Bolter offers you the app when you open it in a mobile browser, and there is a link to your platform's store in Settings, under Notifications. The offer is skipped on a page you were sent rather than one you navigated to, such as a shared app or someone's profile, so a link a colleague sends you opens the thing they sent.

Installing the app does not by itself get you into Bolter. Bolter is invite only, and the app signs you into the account you already have.

Why the app rather than the browser

Notifications. In the app, push notifications work as soon as you sign in, with no setup step. That is the whole reason the app exists, and if notifications reaching your phone matters to you it is the option to take.

If you would rather stay in the browser, you can install Bolter as a home screen app instead. On iPhone, tap the Share button in Safari and choose Add to Home Screen. On Android, open Chrome's menu and tap Install app. Notifications work from a home screen app too, but only once you have opened Bolter from the home screen icon rather than from a browser tab, so go there first and then turn notifications on in Settings.

For what you can control once notifications are on, see Finding your way around.

What the app adds on top

On an iPhone running iOS 16.1 or later, a call you are in shows on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island while you are elsewhere on your phone: the call's name, how many people are in it, and a running timer. Tapping it takes you back into the call. It shows the call rather than controlling it, so muting and leaving still happen inside Bolter. See Calls.

Moving around on a phone

A bar of five buttons sits at the bottom of the screen, and it is how you get everywhere.

The bolt is the big round button in the middle of that bar, and it is where the app opens. It is your assistant's own screen: a box to describe a problem, a short list of what is waiting on you, and whatever your agents are working on right now.

Under those is a row saying how many requests you have made before. Tapping it opens them on their own screen, newest first, with a box at the top to narrow the list by what you asked about. Tapping one of the requests reopens that conversation, and the chevron in the top left brings you back.

Either side of it:

• Chats, on the left, is every conversation you are in, and the search box at the top of it searches your whole account: chats, people, agents and workspaces. Beside that box are two round buttons: the envelope narrows the list to unread, and the funnel narrows it to one workspace. The funnel opens a list of your workspaces from the bottom of the screen; pick one to narrow, pick it again (or All workspaces) to widen back. It wears that workspace's icon while the filter is on, and it is not there at all if you only belong to one workspace. It is the same filter a computer has at the top of its chat list.
• Projects is your work grouped into projects. Tapping one opens that project: its chats, apps, files and finished documents in one list. Tapping any of those opens it full screen, with a chevron back to the project. A red number beside a project means something in it is waiting on you.
• Notifications is your mentions, decisions and everything you missed while you were away: whatever is waiting on a decision at the top, then everything else below it. It is the same list a computer shows in the left strip. The dot on it turns red when something is waiting on a decision from you.
• Settings is your account, your preferences, and your workspace.

There is no Workspace button in the bar. Your workspace is still there and nothing about it has changed: open it from Settings, from a workspace's icon anywhere you see one, or by searching its name. It opens over whatever you were looking at, with Back in the top left.

Filing a chat into a project on a phone

Press and hold a chat in the Chats list and choose Add to project, then pick the project. The chat stays where it is in your chat list: filing adds it to the project rather than moving it out of anything, and a chat can be in more than one project at once.

You can also work the other way round, from the project: open it from the Projects button, tap the three dots beside its name and choose Add chats to project, then pick what to add. Chats and shared apps both.

On a computer you do the same thing by dragging the chat onto a project in the left strip. There is no way to drag on a phone, which is why the press-and-hold menu exists.

What is the same everywhere

Everything else. Chats, threads, files, apps, agents, calls and settings all work on a phone, and a phone screen mostly shows one thing at a time where a computer shows several side by side. A call takes the whole screen and minimizes to a floating pill; a shared app opens full screen with Back in the top left.

Your Bolter account is not tied to a device. Signing in on a phone does not sign you out anywhere else, and you can see and end your signed-in sessions under Settings, in Sessions.