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.

Updated 26 October 2026

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 never shown on these pages, however you reach them: the page for a shared app, chat or job, someone's profile, the page a join link opens, the privacy, terms, blueprint and workflow pages, a shared link page, or the page that verifies your sign-in. So a link a colleague sends you to one of them opens the thing they sent.

Installing the app does not by itself get you into Bolter. The app signs you into the account you already have, or signs you up with your email the same way the website does.

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.

Notifications belong to the sign-in that turned them on. Signing out of the app stops them, and so does signing that phone out from Sessions in Settings on another device. If you do not open Bolter for 30 days you are signed out, and notifications stop until you sign in again.

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.

While Bolter is open, a new message in a chat you are not looking at shows a banner at the top of the screen, in the iPhone app and in a home screen app alike. Tap it to open that chat. Messages in the chat you are reading never show one. In a plain browser tab your phone cannot show these banners, so the unread count on the chat is the only sign.

What your notifications look like

Every message is kept. On iPhone, each chat collapses into one stack on the lock screen, newest message on top with the sender's picture, and opening the stack shows every message in it. On Android, each chat has one notification that shows its latest messages. In a browser or home screen app, each chat shows its latest message, with how many arrived in the title.

A busy chat buzzes at most once a minute. Messages inside that minute still arrive and join the stack, just without a sound. An @mention or an approval waiting on you always alerts, even inside the minute. A reply in a thread reaches you when you started the thread or were mentioned in it, and in a one-to-one chat, a reply in any thread there. If you unfollow or mute a thread, its replies stop reaching you, unless someone @mentions you there.

When you read a chat on any device, its notifications disappear from your other devices too. If your phone was switched off or the app had been closed, they clear the next time you open Bolter.

The number on the app icon counts the chats waiting for you, plus anything in Notifications. A chat muted to nothing never adds to it, and a chat set to mentions only adds when someone mentions you.

For what you can control once notifications are on, see Your sidebar, your lists and your settings.

What the app adds on top

On an iPhone, a Bolter call is a phone call as far as the phone is concerned. It shows on the lock screen with mute, speaker and end, it keeps going when you lock the phone or switch apps, it appears in the Phone app's Recents, and a regular call coming in offers to hold it. On iOS 16.1 or later the call also shows in the Dynamic Island while you are elsewhere on your phone, with the call's name, how many people are in it, and a running timer; tapping it takes you back into the call. See Calls.

An incoming call rings the phone the way a phone call does. On an iPhone it arrives on the phone's own call screen, with the ringtone and the slide to answer, even when Bolter is closed or the phone is locked. Answering opens Bolter straight into the call, on the earpiece like a phone call; declining tells the caller and stops the ring on your other devices. The ring lasts 45 seconds, then stops on its own and leaves a missed call in your bell. On Android the call arrives as a notification you tap to join, for now.

Moving around on a phone

A bar of buttons sits at the bottom of the screen: Chats, Library, the bolt in the middle (Home), Notifications and You. It is how you get everywhere.

You can swap that bar for a sidebar instead: You > Appearance > Layout > Sidebar (an early version, on this phone only). Every screen then gets the full height, and a menu button at the top left opens the same sidebar the desktop app has: pick a workspace or project at the top, switch between All, Chats, Library and Omni, and filter the list. Along its bottom are your picture (the You screen), search, threads, notifications, your agents, and + for everything you can start: new work, a chat, an agent, an app, a project or a workspace. You can also swipe right from the left edge of a screen to open it. Pick Tabs to go back to the bar.

• Chats 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 or one project. The funnel opens a list from the bottom of the screen: your workspaces, then your projects; pick one to narrow, pick it again (or All workspaces / All projects) to widen back. Press and hold a project there to rename, archive or delete it, or to link chats or apps to it. It wears the icon of what you picked while the filter is on. If you only belong to one workspace, the list just shows your projects. While you are searching, it offers workspaces only: a search reaches every chat, whatever project it is in. So with one workspace there is no funnel while a search is typed.
• Library is all the apps, files and artifacts in your account, with a search box, a filter button and tabs for each type. See The Library.
• Home 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, and the chevron in the top left brings you back.
• 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.
• You is your profile, your workspaces, your agents and your settings.

Following an agent from your phone

While an agent works, a card above the message box lists the steps it has reported this turn, newest last, with how long it has been going. Tap Ping me when done and Bolter tells you when it finishes, if you are somewhere else in the app at the time. In the Chats list, an agent's row shows what it is doing in place of the last message, a small dot on an agent that runs on your computer says whether it is listening, and a row waiting on your approval says so with a Review button.

Projects on a phone

There is no Projects button. Instead, the filter button beside the search box on Chats and Library opens one list: your workspaces, then your projects. Tap a project to narrow the list to it, and tap it again (or All projects) to see everything. The button then shows that project's icon. The choice is shared, so Chats and Library narrow to the same project. Press and hold a project in that list to rename, archive or delete it, or to link chats or apps to it. New project at the end of the list starts a new one.

What is under You

From the top:

• Your profile: your picture, name and username.
• Workspaces: one row for each workspace you belong to. Tapping one opens that workspace's page. Invite people opens the invite box for a workspace you run (it asks which one when you run several), and Manage workspaces is the full list, with your pending invitations and a button to create a workspace.
• Your stuff: Agents, Archived chats and, when you have any, Invitations.
• Settings: Billing & Usage, Referrals, Emails, Active sessions, Chats, Notifications, Appearance and Privacy, each on its own screen.
• Legal & Privacy, then Help, What's new, Contact support and Blocked people, then Sign out.

Agents lists the agents you own. At the top are New Bolter hosted agent, Connect external agent (for an agent that runs on your computer, such as Claude Code or Codex), and Activity, which shows what your agents have been doing across your chats. Below them:

• Waiting on you: decisions your agents are waiting on you for, such as an approval or a question to answer. Tap one to open the chat at it. It only shows when something is waiting.
• Working: agents busy right now, each with a line saying what it is doing.
• Idle: the rest. An agent on your computer shows whether it is listening; any other shows when it was last active.

Tapping an agent opens your chat with it, or its profile if you have no chat with it yet.

Your workspace opens over whatever you were looking at, with Back in the top left, whether you open it from You, from a workspace's icon anywhere you see one, or by searching its name.

Messages on a phone

Tap a message to open its menu: reactions, reply, copy, bookmark and the rest. Press and hold the words of a message to select them, then drag the handles to cover what you want and tap Copy, the same as anywhere else on your phone. A picture or video sent as its own message opens when you tap it, so press and hold it to open its menu instead. Swipe a message right to reply to it, or left to ask Omni about it.

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 the filter button on Chats, press and hold the project and choose the row for linking chats or apps, 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 You, in Active sessions.