Copilot desktop app: Cannot scroll to beginning of long conversations

Dear TH,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A.

This is a known issue that other users have reported with the Copilot desktop app (which is technically a Progressive Web App, or PWA). You are not alone in experiencing this.

You've correctly identified the key detail: it works on the web but not in the desktop app. The Microsoft Copilot desktop app is essentially a "wrapper" for the web version, using Microsoft Edge's WebView2 technology to display the web content in a dedicated window.

The problem you're experiencing is a bug in how the desktop app's wrapper handles "lazy loading" or "infinite scrolling." As you scroll up, the app is supposed to request and load older parts of the conversation from the server. For some reason, this mechanism is failing or hitting a limit within the app environment, even though it works correctly in a full browser tab.

To solve this issue, you could try some steps below:

1. Use the Web version:
   • As you've already discovered, the web version of Copilot at copilot.microsoft.com does not have this limitation. For any long conversations where you need to access the beginning, using the web browser version is the most reliable and immediate solution.
2. "Select All" trick:
   • Click inside the Copilot conversation window.
   • Press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to "Select All".
   • This action may force the app to render the entire chat history in order to highlight it, allowing you to scroll back to the beginning.
3. Reset the Copilot App:
   • Go to Settings > Apps > Installed apps.
   • Search for Microsoft Copilot.
   • Click the three dots (...) and select "Advanced options".
   • Scroll down and click the "Reset" button. (You can try "Repair" first, but "Reset" is more thorough).

However, this issue is a common issue that many users reported. So, you could also feedback via Feedback Hub. The more users report this issue, the higher the priority it will become for Microsoft to fix.

In summary, you've encountered a genuine bug in the Copilot desktop app. The best immediate solution is to use the web version for long chats, and the best long-term solution is to report the issue through the Feedback Hub to help Microsoft fix it in a future update.

To assist others who might have similar questions and to help us improve our support system, we kindly encourage you to "Accept the answer" if it successfully addressed your concern. Accepting an answer lets other users know that this solution worked for you, and it also helps us track the effectiveness of our support efforts.

Best regards, 

Bryan Vu | Microsoft Q&A Support Specialist