# Excluding Contacts from the AI Bot

Sometimes you don't want the AI to reply on your behalf — a contact might be your business partner, a family member, or a VIP client who expects a personal touch. This page covers the two ways to keep the bot quiet for specific people while it keeps working normally for everyone else.


## When to use this

Common reasons to exclude a contact from the bot:

* **Personal contacts mixed into a WhatsApp Web account.** If you connected your everyday WhatsApp number, your friends and family are now in the system too — and you almost certainly don't want the AI DMing them.
* **Internal team members.** Colleagues, partners, suppliers, your accountant — anyone you chat with as a human, not as a business.
* **VIP contacts.** High-value clients where every reply needs your personal attention.
* **Anyone who's explicitly asked to talk to a person.** Flip the bot off for them and take over manually from the chat.

In every case below, **incoming messages still arrive, get stored, and trigger notifications**. The only thing that changes is the AI stays quiet. You can always reply yourself from Chats.

## Method 1: Control the bot at pair time (WhatsApp Web only)

When you pair a WhatsApp Web number for the first time (Settings → Channels, or the Connect flow), the pairing dialog asks for a phone number and then shows an **Import existing contacts** toggle. Turning it on reveals three more toggles underneath:

| Toggle | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| **Import existing contacts** | Pulls your existing WhatsApp contacts into the app on first connection. | Off |
| **Make contacts private** | Imported contacts won't have messages stored or sent — use for personal contacts. | Off |
| **Import chat history** | Also pulls in the historical messages for imported contacts (can take a few minutes). | Off |
| **Keep AI paused for imported contacts** | Leaves the AI off for everyone imported this way, so it doesn't message your existing contacts automatically. | **On** (recommended — leave it on) |


Turning on **Make contacts private** automatically switches **Import chat history** off and **Keep AI paused for imported contacts** on — private contacts never get their messages imported or the AI turned loose on them.

**Leave "Keep AI paused for imported contacts" on** when pairing a personal number — that's the default, and it's what keeps the bot from messaging your friends and family. New leads who message you afterwards on that number still get the bot normally; this toggle only affects contacts pulled in at pairing time.

> **Heads-up:** These toggles only apply at the moment you pair the number and don't change retroactively. A reconnect or re-pair of an already-connected number skips this step and always uses the defaults above — it never shows these toggles again. If the bot ends up replying to contacts you didn't want it to, use Method 2 below to flip individuals off.

## Method 2: Per-contact toggle (works for any contact, any time)

Every contact has a **Bot Active** toggle, available any time, on any channel.

1. In the left sidebar, click **Contacts**.
2. Click the contact's row to open the [quick-view panel](creating-contacts.md).
3. Find **Bot Active** under **Settings** in the panel.
4. Flip it off to silence the bot for that person. Flip it back on whenever you want the AI to handle them again.


This is the per-contact "human-only mode" switch — use it for one-off exceptions after the fact.

### Bulk version

To flip Bot Active for many contacts at once:

1. Open the **Contacts** page.
2. Tick the checkboxes for the contacts you want to change — or select a list first, then tick the header checkbox to select everyone in it.
3. In the floating action bar that appears at the bottom, click **Bot off** (or **Bot on** to turn it back on for the selection).

## What "bot inactive" actually means

**Bot inactive does not mean the contact is muted, blocked, or hidden.** When a contact has the bot turned off:

* Their incoming messages **still arrive** in your inbox.
* The messages are **still stored** in the chat history (unless the contact is also marked **Private**).
* You **still get notifications** (email, in-app, push — whatever you've set up).
* The contact still counts as a normal contact in your lists, tags, and reports.
* Their conversations are **still included in Daily Summaries** — and because nobody automated is handling them, the summary is more likely to suggest a manual follow-up task for them.

If you want a contact to stay out of everything — chat history, reports and Daily Summaries alike — mark them **Private** instead: a private contact's messages are not stored at all from that moment on (messages stored before you set it stay). Marking a contact private also switches their bot off automatically. Use Private for personal contacts and team members; use Bot Active off for customers you want to handle yourself.

The only thing that changes: the AI doesn't draft or send a reply on its own. Replying is now your job, from Chats — on your phone, however you normally work.

## Quick decision guide

| Situation | Use this |
|---|---|
| Pairing a personal WhatsApp number with existing friends/family on it | Method 1 — leave **Keep AI paused for imported contacts** on at pair time |
| One specific contact you want to handle yourself | Method 2 — flip **Bot Active** off on their profile |
| A whole list of suppliers, staff, or VIPs already in the app | Method 2's bulk version |

If you're not sure which to use, start with Method 1 when you pair a personal number, and reach for Method 2 whenever an exception pops up later.

> **Note on CSV imports:** there's no per-row column to mark imported contacts as bot-inactive when importing a spreadsheet. Import the list first, then use Method 2's bulk version on the imported batch — see [Importing Contacts from a File](importing-contacts.md).

## Using it as a test whitelist

A common onboarding setup: you want the AI live on a real channel, but replying **only** to a handful of test numbers (you, your client, their helpers) while you validate the setup — silent for everyone else. There's no single "whitelist" switch for this yet, but the Bot Active toggle gets you there:

1. On the **Contacts** page, select all existing contacts and use the bulk **Bot off** action, then flip **Bot Active** back on for just your testers.
2. New people who message you start with the bot **on**, so cover them with an automation: trigger **New contact** → action **Turn AI on or off for a contact**, set to off. See [Automations](../automations/automations.md).

One honest caveat on step 2: the automation and the AI's reply race on a brand-new contact's **very first message**, so occasionally that first message still gets an answer before the switch lands. From the second message on, the contact stays silent until you enable them.

Keyword [Entry Points](../ai-agents/entry-points.md) are **not** a way to do this: keywords only decide which agent picks up a *new* conversation. Once a contact is routed, the AI answers all their follow-up messages whether they contain the keyword or not — and keyword matching is deliberately forgiving (typos, the keyword inside a longer sentence), so it can't act as a strict filter.

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## Next Steps

- [Adding a New Contact](creating-contacts.md) — a contact you add manually starts with the bot turned off; flip it on from the quick-view panel when you want the AI to reply to them.
- [Organizing Lists & Contacts](list-and-contact-management.md) — build a list of contacts you plan to bulk-exclude.
- [AI Agents](../ai-agents/ai-agents.md) — configure how the bot behaves for the contacts it does handle.