Message requests

When someone you have never been in touch with writes to you, their conversation arrives as a message request, at the top of your list under Message requests. Someone counts as new until you have booked a session together, or one of you has accepted a message request from the other. Being in the same group does not count.

Accepting or declining

You can open a request and read it before you decide. Until you accept, you cannot reply, and further messages in it send you no emails.

Accept turns it into an ordinary conversation. From then on, a new conversation between you two is never a request.

Decline removes it from your list. In a one-to-one request, the sender is not told, and they can no longer send messages in it.

If you decline and the same person later books a session with you, the conversation opens again so the two of you can talk about the booking.

How you hear about one

A new request sends you one email, and one text message to your verified phone number (by WhatsApp where your number uses it). More messages in the same request send nothing more. You can change this under Settings → Notifications, in Messages.

A one-to-one request only appears once a message in it has passed the automatic message check. If the first message is flagged, the request stays hidden unless a later one passes.

Groups

Being invited to a group by someone you have not been in touch with also arrives as a request. It appears straight away, and you accept or decline it the same way.

If you offer services

People asking you something for the first time usually arrive this way, so look at your requests as often as your messages. Declining a request counts as an answer to it. Accepting does not, so reply once you have accepted. The article on replying in time explains the clock.

To stop people you have never spoken to from starting new conversations, turn off Let people message you on your services page. Your existing conversations stay open, and anyone who books a session can still reach you.