> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://howto.paigeme.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The Preview tab

> The Preview panel is a phone that runs your bot. Type messages to test it, switch between test contacts, and reset a contact to start a conversation fresh — all without touching your live bot or picking up your phone.

{/*
<PageDemo
src="/assets/videos/preview-tab.mp4"
poster="/assets/videos/preview-tab.poster.jpg"
caption="A tour of the Preview panel"
/>
*/}

**Preview** opens a WhatsApp-styled phone alongside your work that runs your bot's **preview** copy. Type into it and your bot answers exactly as it would for a customer — so you can try a change the moment it's built, without deploying and without messaging from your own phone.

Everything you do here runs against preview data, so test conversations never reach your live customers or touch your production data.

## Send a test message

Type in the message box at the bottom and send — with the send button or by pressing **Enter**. Your bot processes the message in real time and replies in the chat, with a typing indicator while it works.

You're not limited to text:

* **Send an image** with the image button, to test how your bot handles media.
* **Send a location** to test location-based logic.
* **Tap buttons and list options** in your bot's replies just as a customer would, to walk through an interactive flow.

<Tip>
  Open **Tools → Logs** while you test to watch your bot's `console.log` output land against each message. See [Execution logs](/guides/logs).
</Tip>

## Switch between test contacts

The preview simulates separate people so you can test how your bot treats different contacts. The contact selector at the top of the phone shows who you're currently messaging as — **Contact 1**, **Contact 2**, and so on.

* Open the dropdown to switch to another contact.
* Choose **New Contact** to add a fresh one — useful for testing a first-time greeting or a flow from the very start. You can have up to ten.

Each contact keeps its own conversation and state, so you can check that a returning contact picks up where they left off while a new one starts clean.

## Reset a contact

To start a conversation over — say you want to re-test your welcome flow from scratch — use the reset control at the top of the phone:

* **Reset this contact** clears the current contact's conversation and state, so your next message is treated as their first.
* **Reset all contacts** wipes every preview contact back to a single default one.

<Note>
  Resetting clears conversation history and state. Any custom tables your bot wrote to in the preview database may need to be cleared separately.
</Note>

<Tip>
  The Preview panel tests your **preview** bot. To test the same bot over real WhatsApp — buttons, flows, and templates delivered to an actual phone — link your number with [Paige Dev](/guides/testing).
</Tip>

<Note>
  On a phone, the preview is the other half of the **Build** tab — describe a change in the chat, then swipe across to try it. See [Use Paige on your phone](/guides/mobile-app).
</Note>