# 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
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](https://bolter.chat/help/your-sidebar-and-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](https://bolter.chat/help/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](https://bolter.chat/help/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.

Source: https://bolter.chat/help/bolter-on-your-phone