Manage prompts and conversations by using AI
Copilot Conversations and Notebooks
ImportantFind, continue, rename, delete, and move chats without confusing history management with prompt reuse, collaboration, or memory.
Aligned to the AB-730 skills measured as of July 22, 2026; product behavior verified August 23, 2026.
Why this matters
Previous conversations can preserve useful context or retain information that should be removed. AB-730 asks the business user to choose the precise history action and recognize when a Notebook provides a focused body of work.
Must Know
- Chat history lets a user locate a prior Copilot conversation, review it, and continue it when the earlier assumptions and context still apply.
- Rename changes a conversation’s title for discoverability. It does not change the conversation, its sources, or personalization behavior.
- Delete removes the selected conversation from chat history. Moving or renaming it does not perform deletion.
- Move to notebook adds the conversation to a Copilot Notebook so it can contribute to a focused working context with related references and instructions.
- Add only relevant conversations and sources to a notebook. Unrelated material can dilute the focused context.
- Notebooks organize a scoped body of work; Pages provide a durable editable canvas for collaborating on selected output.
Compare and Distinguish
- Find vs continue: locate the earlier conversation vs intentionally resume its existing context.
- Rename vs delete: improve discoverability vs remove the conversation from history.
- History vs saved prompt: retain a past exchange and context vs retain instructions for future reruns.
- Notebook vs Page: collect relevant references, conversations, and instructions for focused work vs co-edit a durable generated artifact.
- Delete chat vs manage memory: remove one conversation from history vs review or remove personalized memories and chat-history inferences.
Scenario examples
- Scenario: A project discussion from Tuesday contains assumptions needed for today’s follow-up. Think: Find and continue the earlier chat.
- Scenario: Five conversations all have generic titles. Think: Rename the useful one with a meaningful project title.
- Scenario: An obsolete sensitive chat should no longer appear in history. Think: Delete that conversation; do not merely rename it.
- Scenario: Several project chats and files must support sustained analysis, but the team is not yet co-authoring an output. Think: Add the relevant conversations to the project notebook.
Exam traps
- Renaming a chat does not edit its content or reset what Copilot remembers.
- A notebook is not simply a longer chat title and a Page is not merely a notebook with sharing enabled.
- Moving every conversation into one notebook weakens scope rather than improving it.
- Deleting a chat and deleting saved memory are related privacy controls but not the same action.
Key takeaways
- Find and continue for valid prior context; rename for organization; delete for removal.
- Move selected chats to a Notebook for focused ongoing work.
- Choose Pages when the requirement changes from scoped analysis to co-editing an artifact.
How it works
- A reopened conversation retains its previous exchange, so a follow-up can build on established context when that context remains appropriate.
- Moving a chat to a Notebook makes it part of that notebook’s bounded body of work; the user should curate rather than indiscriminately accumulate context.
Objects and administrative surfaces
- Chats list in Microsoft Copilot — find and revisit conversations.
- Conversation actions — Rename, Move to notebook, and Delete.
- Copilot Notebooks — focused context built from selected references, conversations, and instructions.
When to use it
- Continue a previous chat for a genuinely dependent follow-up.
- Rename for later retrieval, delete when the conversation should be removed, and move to a Notebook for sustained scoped work.
Security and governance implications
- Review retained conversations and notebook membership so obsolete or sensitive material is not reused unintentionally.
- Source permissions still apply inside a notebook.
How to reason about this
- If a follow-up ignores earlier assumptions, confirm that the correct prior conversation was reopened.
- If notebook results drift, remove unrelated conversations and verify the relevance and currency of its selected references.
More detail
- The current Microsoft Copilot chat-history menu exposes Rename, Move to notebook, and Delete for a selected conversation.
- Copilot may also use previous chats to infer useful personalized context. A user manages those inferences through personalization controls; ordinary chat organization is not a substitute.
Ready for the quiz?
- What changes when a chat is renamed?
- When should an earlier conversation be continued rather than starting blank?
- How does a Notebook differ from a Page?
- Why is deleting a chat not identical to deleting a saved memory?
Related objectives
- D2.2.a — Understand how to find previous conversations
- D2.2.b — Delete a chat
- D2.2.c — Rename a chat
- D2.2.d — Add a conversation to a notebook