Customize the messenger

The messenger takes its settings from window.intercomSettings, the object you pasted when you installed it. Add any of these next to app_id.

#Light or dark

theme is "auto" (the default, which follows each visitor's system setting), "light" or "dark":

window.intercomSettings = { app_id: "YOUR_WIDGET_KEY", theme: "dark" };

#Sounds

A soft chime plays when your team replies. Turn it off with sound: false.

#Tell it who's signed in

If visitors sign in to your product, your server signs a short-lived token that says who they are, and the page passes it as user_jwt. Your team sees who they're talking to, their conversations follow them to every device, and with an email in the token the messenger never needs to ask for one:

window.intercomSettings = {
  app_id: "YOUR_WIDGET_KEY",
  user_jwt: "TOKEN_FROM_YOUR_SERVER",
};

The token is a JWT signed with your workspace's identity secret (HS256). It carries the user's user_id, optionally their email and name, and an exp at most 24 hours ahead. Settings → Messenger → Identity verification has the secret and the code to sign one in Node.js or Python. Keep the secret on your server: anyone who has it can sign in as any of your users.

The token is the only way to tell the messenger who someone is. A user_id or email set on the page is ignored, because anyone could type anyone's, and so is a token that doesn't check out: the visitor chats anonymously and your browser console says why. Coming from Intercom? intercom_user_jwt works too.

If someone signs in after the page has loaded, as in a single-page app, pass their token:

Intercom('update', { user_jwt: "TOKEN_FROM_YOUR_SERVER" });

When they sign out, call Intercom('shutdown'). It forgets the visitor in that browser, so the next person to use it starts fresh.

#Open it from your own buttons

• Intercom('show') opens the messenger, and Intercom('hide') closes it.
• Intercom('showNewMessage', 'I have a question about…') opens a new conversation with that text ready to send.

#Say hello first

To greet visitors with one-tap questions, see Greet visitors with quick replies.