Tidio App: Mobile and Desktop Download, Setup and Notifications

Tidio's agent apps cost nothing extra. The pricing page lists a desktop app for Windows and macOS and mobile apps for iOS and Android on every plan, the $0 Free plan included ^[1]. You install the mobile app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in with the same email and password you use in the web panel, and answer live chats and tickets from your phone. One feature inside the app is gated: the live visitors list needs Starter or higher. Notifications are where most setups go wrong. They depend on your online status, your phone's battery settings and the project you are logged into.

Which Tidio apps exist and who can use them

Tidio runs in four places besides the browser panel: iPhone, Android, Windows and macOS. Tidio's help center says the mobile apps can be downloaded from Settings in the panel or straight from the app stores. All of them are clients for the same account, not separate products. Your widget, Flows, Lyro settings and inbox stay where you built them, and each app simply opens them. Nothing set up in the browser has to be rebuilt on a phone, and nothing configured on a phone lives anywhere but your project.

Every plan includes the apps, and every seat can use them. Free, Starter and Growth each come with 10 seats per project, so a small team can put the app on ten phones without paying per agent. Tidio prices by project and by billable conversations, so the apps do not change your bill. The conversation quota still applies on the phone: once a project reaches its monthly limit, agents cannot see or answer new conversations, in the app or anywhere else, until the reset or an upgrade. Our Tidio review covers the plan meters in full.

Setting up the mobile app

The app needs an existing Tidio account. Tidio's help article tells current users not to sign up again inside the app, because a fresh account there will not be connected to the chat already running on your website ^[2]. If you have no account yet, our guide to whether Tidio is free explains what the Free plan covers before you create one. The setup itself takes four steps:

1. Install Tidio from the App Store or Google Play.
2. Log in with the email and password you use for the web panel.
3. If your account holds several projects, pick the right one in the app's settings.
4. Set your status to online, because live alerts only reach agents who are online.

Two account rules carry over from the browser. Two-factor authentication can only be switched on in the web panel, but once it is on, it also protects the mobile login, so enable it before handing phones to the team. Tidio's version uses an authenticator app and one-time backup codes. Projects are the second rule. One account can hold several projects, each with its own widget and plan, yet an agent is logged into only one project at a time in the app and gets notifications only from that project. Two stores run as two projects means switching by hand.

What agents can do from a phone

The mobile app is a working inbox, not a viewer. Tidio's help article says it shows current and solved live conversations and tickets, lets agents edit visitor info and see the pages a visitor viewed, and supports swiping to leave or delete a chat. WhatsApp message templates can be sent from the app as well as from the panel (viewed pages and WhatsApp templates need Growth). That covers the daily job: pick up a chat, answer it, check who the visitor is, and close an email ticket without opening a laptop.

Plan gates follow you onto the phone. The live visitors list in the mobile app starts at Starter, the same gate as on the web. Starter costs $29 a month billed monthly or $24.17 a month billed annually ($290 a year) for 100 billable conversations a month. A year of monthly billing comes to $348 against $290 on annual billing, by our arithmetic. The two are equal at ten months of use, and the Terms owe no refund for unused time, so annual billing only pays off if you keep the plan at least that long. The gates that touch app users:

Operating hours deserve a note for phone users. They switch an agent's status automatically on a schedule, but only while that agent is logged in; a logged-out agent cannot be forced online. Since live alerts need an online status, a signed-out phone gets nothing, schedule or not. The widget shows online while at least one agent is online and offline when none are. For widget-side settings, such as hiding the chat when nobody is available, see our live chat widget guide.

The desktop app on Windows and macOS

The desktop installers sit under Settings, Download apps in the panel. The app is the panel in its own window, with notification settings similar to the web version ^[3]. Agents who live in the inbox all day get a window that does not vanish among browser tabs. Two tasks still belong in the browser, though. Two-factor authentication is enabled there, and the spell-checker for agent messages works only in the browser app, not in the desktop or mobile apps. Agents who write long email replies may want a browser tab for that reason alone.

Three quirks catch people. On Windows, the x button closes the app entirely, so its notifications stop; the minimize button keeps it running. On a Mac, the app does not come from the Mac App Store, so macOS may block the install until you allow it in Security and Privacy settings. And on both systems, the app disconnects from Tidio's server when the computer is switched off or put to sleep. Recent messages can then be missing until you clear the app's storage. Check the inbox after every wake-up.

Getting notifications to arrive

Tidio sends alerts for new chat requests, new messages, incoming visitors, new tickets and ticket messages, plus the Notify agents action inside a Flow. Live sound and popup alerts only work while you are online. When every agent is offline, the widget is offline too and only email notifications go out. That single rule explains most missing-alert complaints. An agent who logged out, or whose status is offline, will not hear the phone, however the device itself is set.

Android, iPhone and Apple Watch

On Android, delays usually start with the phone. Tidio's help center blames Low Power Mode and battery-saver or manufacturer sleep modes, naming Asus, Sony and Samsung, and says some phone brands and cleaner apps can block Tidio alerts outright. The fix follows from the cause: take Tidio out of battery-saving and cleaner-app lists, and if alerts still fail, reinstall the app, as Tidio's help suggests. Apple Watch alerts work only when the iPhone is locked or snoozed. In use, the alert shows on the phone, not the watch.

Browser and offline email

For the web panel, Tidio's help covers Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari. Settings > Personal > Notifications has a button that sends a test notification, the fastest way to see whether the browser is blocking Tidio. Offline email notifications are the safety net. They go to your login address, a Forward email notifications option adds others, several messages are collected into one email, and it arrives five minutes after the last message ^[4]. No email goes out if you switch to online first or an agent is assigned. Replying from your mailbox answers the visitor.

The Mobile SDK, store ratings and rival apps

Do not confuse the apps your team installs with the Mobile SDK. The agent apps are for answering customers. The SDK works the other way: it embeds Tidio's live chat and the Lyro AI Agent inside your own iOS or Android app, with native implementations for both, and can trigger Flows from that app. It is a Premium feature, Premium has custom pricing through sales, and access is requested through a contact form rather than switched on in the panel. Tidio says a basic integration typically takes 15 to 30 minutes. Customization covers colors, fonts, positioning and behavior.

The two phone stores do not tell the same story. The Google Play score trails the App Store one, so Android-heavy teams should run the notification checks above on each phone before rollout. Agent apps are standard here. Help Scout lists its iOS and Android apps on its Free plan, and Zoho Desk lists its agent mobile app on every edition. LiveChat, now sold to new customers as Text plans, offers desktop and mobile apps that are free to download but need a trial or a paid plan. Gorgias's mobile apps have no calls, no SSO login and no ticket fields.

The bottom line

Tidio's apps are a fair deal for small teams: four platforms, every plan, no per-agent charge up to the 10 seats on Free, Starter and Growth. The phone handles real work, from live chats to tickets, while the visitors list waits for Starter and viewed-pages history and WhatsApp templates for Growth. Installation is the easy part. Notifications need the real attention. Keep agents online, exempt the app from Android battery savers, minimize instead of closing on Windows, and leave offline email on as the backstop. If you want chat inside your own app, that is the Mobile SDK, part of the sales-priced Premium plan.