Latest / Sidekick's What Just Shipped / HubSpot resizable chat widget: let visitors read long replies | Shipped Jun 2026
Transcript
- Rob (AI host): Your site visitors can now drag HubSpot's chat widget bigger, or flip it between a compact and an expanded view. Dana (AI host): Does anyone have to turn that on? Rob (AI host): Our research says no. Rob (AI host): But HubSpot's help pages don't mention it yet, so there are a few gaps to cover. Narrator (AI voice): This is Sidekick's What Just Shipped, presented by Sidekick Strategies. Narrator (AI voice): Your hosts, Rob and Dana, are AI. Narrator (AI voice): The voices are synthetic, the research is real, and humans check every claim before it reaches you. Rob (AI host): Just so you know: Dana and I are AI hosts. Rob (AI host): We don't run a website or chat with visitors ourselves. Dana (AI host): I'm Dana. Dana (AI host): Today I'm playing a marketer whose chatbot sends long pricing answers that visitors have to scroll through in a tiny window. Rob (AI host): Here's the update. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's July product updates say visitors can drag the widget's edges to any size, or toggle between compact and expanded views. Rob (AI host): HubSpot remembers each visitor's preferred size. And it's listed for all hubs and tiers. Dana (AI host): Remembers it how? Rob (AI host): Our write-up from the thirtieth of June says the size is saved in the visitor's browser, so it opens at that size next time. Dana (AI host): And there's no setting for it? Rob (AI host): Our write-up says no admin setup is needed. Rob (AI host): Chat settings live under Service, then Chatflows, in HubSpot's live chat help page, updated on the fifth of October. Dana (AI host): What can I control on that help page? Rob (AI host): On the Display tab, you choose an accent color, the chat heading, and the avatar. Rob (AI host): Then there's a Chat display behavior section, set separately for desktop and mobile. Rob (AI host): You can pop open the welcome message as a prompt, only show the chat launcher, or show the welcome message, then open the chat when a trigger is met. Rob (AI host): Outside business hours, you can show a return time, show an away message, hide the launcher, or do nothing. Rob (AI host): And there's an email capture section, where you decide when the chat asks visitors for an email address. Dana (AI host): So the open behavior is mine, and the size is the visitor's. Rob (AI host): That's our reading. There's also a beta for where the launcher sits. Rob (AI host): Center stage puts it in the middle of the page. Rob (AI host): The Icon option is a compact icon in the bottom right. Dana (AI host): What if a visitor closes it? Rob (AI host): The help page says if a visitor minimizes a chatflow, HubSpot respects that across pages and chatflows until a cookie expires after twenty-four hours. Rob (AI host): So it may not pop open again that day, even if your settings say it should. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Hey, it's George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Full honesty, this is my AI voice clone, made with my permission. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Small settings like chat behavior pile up fast in a new portal, and lots of teams never get past the defaults. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Our HubSpot onboarding sets up your portal and trains each role on the tools they'll use, in the same engagement. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): After go live, we stay with your team for two to four weeks to answer questions. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): It's under services at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Dana (AI host): Okay, the skeptic part. Dana (AI host): As the marketer I'm playing, can I switch resizing off, or set a default size? Rob (AI host): We can't tell you. We looked through that help page and didn't find a resize setting. Rob (AI host): So whether an admin can control it is unknown. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's post also doesn't say how the size is remembered. Rob (AI host): The browser detail is from our write-up. Rob (AI host): And the write-up's path starts at Conversations, then Chatflows, where the help page starts at Service. Dana (AI host): Does it work if I embed chat right in the page? Rob (AI host): We couldn't confirm. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's developer docs say an inline embedded widget can be styled with your own height and width. Rob (AI host): Their example sets the inline frame to three hundred pixels wide and five hundred tall. Rob (AI host): Nothing on that page mentions visitor resizing. So test it on your own page. Dana (AI host): Can a developer open or close it from code? Rob (AI host): Yes. Rob (AI host): The docs list widget open, which opens the widget if it's not already open, and widget close, which closes it. Rob (AI host): An inline embedded widget stays open until it's removed. Rob (AI host): None of that is new, but it's what you have if you want more control than the visitor does. Dana (AI host): And on phones? Rob (AI host): Also unknown. HubSpot's post doesn't say whether resizing works on mobile. Rob (AI host): The help page does say you can hide a chatflow on mobile with a targeting exclusion rule. Dana (AI host): If a visitor switches from a laptop to a phone, does their size follow them? Rob (AI host): We don't know. Rob (AI host): If the write-up is right that it's saved in the browser, a different device would start fresh. Rob (AI host): But that's our inference, not something HubSpot says. Dana (AI host): Same July section, anything else? Rob (AI host): Yes. HubSpot added toggles to allow messages when your team is unavailable. Rob (AI host): Separate ones for Away, Outside Working Hours, and Max Capacity, so you can still capture what visitors write. Rob (AI host): The post lists that for all hubs and tiers too. Dana (AI host): But? Rob (AI host): But the chat channel help page, updated on the thirty-first of July, says the max capacity settings are Service Hub Enterprise only. Rob (AI host): So the capacity toggle may not be there for you. We couldn't confirm which is right. Dana (AI host): Where are the other toggles? Rob (AI host): In the chatflow's availability behavior section. Rob (AI host): On the Away tab, you turn on Allow visitors to send messages. Rob (AI host): Outside working hours has its own tab. Rob (AI host): For max capacity, the help page offers three choices: show a wait message, hide the chat launcher, or do nothing. Rob (AI host): Again, it marks those Service Hub Enterprise only. Dana (AI host): So on a smaller plan, I'd plan around Away and Outside working hours. Dana (AI host): Our write-up also says chat engagement numbers might shift. Is that sourced? Rob (AI host): No. That's our write-up's prediction, not HubSpot's. Rob (AI host): We'd treat it as a guess until you see your own reports. Dana (AI host): And the claim that the widget used to be a fixed size? Rob (AI host): HubSpot's post doesn't describe the old widget. It only describes the new behavior. Rob (AI host): So that part is from our write-up alone. Dana (AI host): Fair. Here's my plan, as the marketer I'm playing. Dana (AI host): Open my site in a normal browser, ask the bot the pricing question, then drag the widget wider and switch to expanded. Dana (AI host): Close it, reload, and see if it remembers the size. Dana (AI host): Then try the same thing on my phone. Rob (AI host): And while you're in there, check whether Allow visitors to send messages is on for Away. Rob (AI host): Chat resizing, recapped. Rob (AI host): Visitors pick the size, HubSpot remembers it, and you still control when chat opens. Dana (AI host): Each source we checked is in the show notes, and our write-ups are at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Rob (AI host): Thanks a lot for listening. Dana (AI host): Try resizing your own widget on a phone this week. Narrator (AI voice): Sidekick's What Just Shipped is presented by Sidekick Strategies, with AI hosts Rob and Dana and AI-generated music. Narrator (AI voice): We're independent, and not affiliated with HubSpot. Find our research at Sidekick Strategies dot com.