Where guest-app messages land

Guests with a booking get a guest app - arrival details, self check-in, and a Messages screen. There is no separate guest-app mailbox to watch: a guest message from the app is an ordinary In-app message on the same conversation your Inbox already lists, unread dots and all.

Screen /inbox · Roles: Admin, Point of Contact, Booking Manager, Account Manager, Guest Manager, Airbnb Manager, Front Desk, Co-Host

How the two sides map

The guest does	Your team sees
Writes in the guest app’s Messages screen	An inbound In-app message in the Inbox and on the booking’s Messages tab
Attaches a photo or file	The attachment on the same message
Reads your reply	Any message your team sends on the In-app transport

To answer into the guest app, reply on the In-app transport. A reply sent on WhatsApp or Airbnb goes to that channel instead - the guest app shows only the in-app lane of the conversation.

What the guest never sees

The seam is filtered on purpose:

• Internal notes and @mentions never cross it - the guest app’s read excludes them, always. See Internal notes.
• Delivery plumbing (channel details, external ids) stays on your side; the guest sees the message, who sent it, and when.

An In-app reply reaches only guests who open the app

The guest app is tied to a booking, and reading it is the guest’s choice. For time-critical messages to a guest you haven’t seen active in the app, prefer the channel they actually wrote on - usually WhatsApp.

Turning guest messaging on

The guest app itself - whether messaging is offered, and what content it shows - is configured per property on the Guest App screen (/guest-app), an Admin surface.

What’s next

Not every message in a thread was typed by a person: Automated messages.