Chat

The Chat tab is where you talk to the assistant. It uses the tools of the plugins you have turned on to look things up or act for you, and it can show forms, pickers and data cards in the chat. This page covers what you can do on this tab.

You need to connect an AI provider before you can chat. Until you do, the tab shows a Connect AI service button that opens Settings → AI provider.

Send a messageCopy Anchor Link

1. Type in the message box at the bottom. For longer text, tap the expand button at the top right of the box to open the full-screen editor. To speak instead, tap the microphone; see Voice input.
2. Tap the send button.

The assistant replies in the language you write in.

A new, empty chat lists a few example questions, such as "What classes do I have today?". Tapping one sends it right away.

While the assistant replies, it shows what it is doing, for example Thinking or Using a tool. When the reply is finished:

• If the model produced reasoning, "Thought for Ns" appears above the reply. Tap it to show or hide the thinking.
• If the assistant used tools, it shows "Used N tools" and their names. The list folds away once the answer's text starts; tap it to see it again.
• Below the reply is a copy button. The latest reply also has a regenerate button. Tap the small icon on the left to show the reply's stats: model, time taken and tokens.

If you switch to another app while a reply is running, the app sends a "Reply ready" notification when it finishes.

Stop and queueCopy Anchor Link

While the assistant is replying, a stop button appears next to the send button. Tap it to stop the reply; the reply is marked Stopped.

You can still type your next message during a reply and tap Send after this reply. Queued messages are sent in order when the current reply ends. If the reply is stopped or fails, the queue pauses and a banner reads "Reply interrupted, queued messages are paused"; tap Resume to carry on. Tap a queued message to move it back into the message box.

There is no limit on the number of steps in one reply. The assistant keeps going until the task is done or you stop it. In a long task, such as a Copilot order, the older steps are summarized as the context fills up, and the task continues.

AttachmentsCopy Anchor Link

Tap + at the bottom left of the message box to open Add to message.

A message can carry up to 8 attachments. Text files can be up to 200 KB, documents up to 30 MB and audio files up to 50 MB. Images only work with models that accept them. If the current model doesn't, the sheet says so and offers Switch when another model can. For example, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash accepts images and DeepSeek-V4-Pro doesn't.

Documents and audioCopy Anchor Link

PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files are read into text on your phone. The file itself is not uploaded; the assistant gets the text. The beginning of a long document goes with your message, and the assistant reads further pages or searches the document when it needs to. It quotes numbers, dates and amounts as written. Tap an attachment to preview the text the assistant sees.

A scanned PDF holds only pictures of pages, with no text to read. If you have saved a DeepSeek API key in Settings → AI provider, the app sends such a PDF to DeepSeek OCR and attaches the recognised text. This costs $0.225 per 1,000 pages on your DeepSeek account, and works for files up to 100 MiB and 1,000 pages. Without a DeepSeek key, the app asks you to add one or to take photos of the pages instead.

Other files can't be read, and the app says why: a file with a password, or a damaged file.

Audio files are transcribed by your voice input service, and the assistant reads the transcript. Alibaba Cloud Bailian (live) only handles live speech, so choose SiliconFlow for audio files.

The text of a document is treated as data. If a file contains instructions, the assistant doesn't follow them.

Long pasted textCopy Anchor Link

When you paste very long text, the box says it is too long to send as a message. Tap Make attachment to send it as an attachment.

CommandsCopy Anchor Link

Type / at the start of the message box to open the command menu. Keep typing to filter it, and tap a command to run it. Commands also accept Chinese aliases, such as /新对话.

Plugins add their own commands too, for example /balance (Campus Card balance), /canteen (where to eat right now), /homework (unsubmitted Blackboard assignments) and /share (share your payment code with a friend). Type /help to see every command available now.

Model and contextCopy Anchor Link

The model label below the message box shows the current model. Tap it to choose another one. The new model is used in this chat from your next message, and becomes the default for new chats.

When the model supports it, the top of the picker also has Thinking. Auto (the default) thinks carefully when planning a task and quickly between steps when Copilot operates your phone; you can also fix it at Low, High or Max. The assistant replies in the language you write in: ask in Chinese and the answer is in Chinese, even when the app is in English.

The ring next to the model label shows how much of the context budget this chat uses. Tap it to see what takes up the context and how often the chat has been compacted. When a chat goes over the budget, older messages are summarized automatically, also in the middle of a long task; the chat shows "Compacted N messages", which you can tap to read the summary. Set the budget in Settings → AI provider → Context budget. By default it is the model's whole context; see AI provider → Context budget.

Edit and copy messagesCopy Anchor Link

• Edit a message you sent: long-press it and tap Edit. The text goes back into the message box with the banner "Editing · sending replaces this message and everything after it". Send it to replace the rest of the chat from that point. Tap the close button on the banner to cancel.
• Copy a message you sent: long-press it and tap Copy.
• Copy a reply: tap the copy button below it, or type /copy for the last reply.

ChatsCopy Anchor Link

Tap the menu button at the top left of the Chat tab to open your chats. They are grouped as Pinned, Today, Yesterday, Previous 7 days and Earlier, with a search box at the top.

• Tap a chat to open it.
• Long-press a chat to Rename, Pin or delete it.
• Swipe a chat to the left to delete it. You can tap Undo within 5 seconds.

The app titles new chats from their content. Tap the title at the top of the Chat tab to change it. The + at the top right starts a new chat.

What the assistant can doCopy Anchor Link

What the assistant can do depends on the plugins you have turned on. For example, it can:

• Check your Campus Card balance, network fee, grades, free classrooms, canteen crowds and campus notices.
• Sync your timetable from the university and create to-dos, reminders and scheduled checks.
• Put numbers on your dashboard.
• Read and search documents you attach.
• Search the web and read web pages, with your DeepSeek API key; see Web search below.
• Change the app's settings, such as the theme, language, time zone, model, or a plugin's switch and permissions; see Settings → Changing settings in chat.
• Operate other apps on your phone with Copilot, once you have set it up.
• Show a form or picker in the chat for you to fill in and Submit.

Some actions can only be done by you in the app, never by the assistant. Examples are showing your Campus Card payment code, choosing and submitting files for a Blackboard assignment, and entering passwords and API keys.

Settings → Plugins lists every plugin; see Plugins and permissions.

Web searchCopy Anchor Link

When you have saved a DeepSeek API key in Settings → AI provider, the assistant can look things up on the web. It works with any chat model: the assistant loads the DeepSeek plugin when it needs to search. The plugin has two tools:

• Search the web (deepseek__web_search) uses DeepSeek Search and returns up to 20 results, each with a title, link, site, date and summary.
• Read a web page (deepseek__web_read) reads a page as text, 12,000 characters at a time.

Each search or page read costs $0.75 per 1,000 calls on your DeepSeek account. Search results and pages are written by third parties, so the assistant treats them as data and doesn't follow instructions in them. For campus information, the assistant uses the campus plugins instead.

Confirm the assistant's actionsCopy Anchor Link

Each kind of action in each plugin has a permission: Allow, Ask first or Never. Before an action set to Ask first, the assistant shows a confirmation sheet titled "AI wants to run", which names the plugin.

• Tap Allow to run it this once.
• Tap Deny to refuse; the assistant is told it was refused.
• Tap Allow, and don't ask again for this kind of action to run it and switch that kind of action in this plugin to Allow. The confirmation for Copilot's actions in phone apps doesn't have this option.

See Plugins and permissions for how to set permissions.