Messages is where you have conversations with your team, in direct messages, groups and channels. Conversations update live.
Who can do this
Anyone in the workspace can read and send messages in the conversations they are part of. Pinning a message needs the right to edit the workspace's records, so a viewer cannot pin.
Find it
Open Messages in the sidebar. The page has tabs: Direct, Channels, Threads, and Enquiries.
Enquiries holds your marketplace enquiries. It appears when you have one, or when you can ask practices for quotes.
Under the tabs, press All, Unread or Mentions to filter the list. Enquiries has All, Unread and Waiting on you instead.
Start a conversation
Press New message. The panel opens.
Search for a person by name and press their row to open a direct thread, or to start one if none exists. Press New group to choose several people, name the group and start it. Press New channel to create a channel.
Create a channel
Give the channel a name. The name becomes its address: lowercase, spaces replaced by dashes, and only letters, numbers and dashes kept.
Under Who can join, choose Open (anyone in this workspace can find and join) or Private (only people you add). You may add people now or later.
Press Create channel. If a channel with that address already exists, the form offers to open it.
Browse open channels
On the Channels tab, press Browse channels. The directory lists every open channel you are not in. Press Join beside one to join it.
Write a message
Click the composer at the bottom of a conversation. Type your message. Press Enter to send, or Shift + Enter for a new line. To send with Enter and break lines with Shift + Enter instead, open the composer menu and tick Enter adds a new line.
Press Formatting to show Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Link, Numbered list, Bulleted list, Blockquote, Code and Code block.
Press the emoji button to choose one. Press the mention button or type @ to name someone.
Attach files
Drop a file onto the composer, or press the paperclip icon and choose one. Each file uploads as soon as it is added. You may attach up to 10 files per message. Each file may be up to 100 megabytes.
Reply in a thread
Press the reply icon beside a message. The replies panel opens on the right. Type your reply. It appears in the Threads tab for everyone.
Message actions
Hover over a message or press the overflow menu icon at its top right. The actions you may do appear. Acts you cannot do are absent, never shown greyed out.
- Correct message: change the words in your own message, within fifteen minutes of sending it. Every version is kept. The message is marked as edited. Press Version history to read earlier versions.
- Copy link to message: copies a link to this message to the clipboard.
- Leave unread from here: marks this message and everything after it unread.
- Forward to…: opens a picker. Choose a conversation and the message is copied there.
- Save to my shelf: keeps the message on your shelf. Press Take off my shelf to remove it.
- Remind me about this: choose a time. The message comes back at that time. Open the menu again to cancel the reminder.
- Pin message: pins it in the conversation. Everyone sees pinned messages in the details panel. Press Unpin message to take the pin off.
- Withdraw message: removes the message from the conversation. The words are still held and remain reachable by a subject access request or a legal hold. Withdrawing is not deletion. Workspace owners may withdraw anybody's message; everyone else may withdraw only their own.
Reactions
Press a reaction emoji under the message, or open the menu and choose one. The five quick reactions are thumbs-up, tick, eyes, folded hands and party popper.
Connection notice
If your connection drops, a notice says Messages is reconnecting and that new messages will appear when you are back online. It keeps trying by itself. Press Try now to try straight away.
Common questions
"Can I delete a message?" No. You may withdraw a message. It stops being shown in the conversation and is marked as withdrawn. The words are still held for a subject access request or a legal hold.
"How long can I correct a message?" Fifteen minutes from when you sent it.