Use Team chat

Channels

Channels belong to Personal or the selected team. Everyone in a team can read its channels, apart from its guests. A channel made members only, to let guests in, is read by its members, and anyone in the team can join it from the channel list (see Guests in a channel, below). A channel in Personal is read only by you. Switch between Personal and your teams at the top of the channel list. Every team has a General channel.

Only team admins create channels. On the website, open the Team chat menu (⋯) at the top of the channel list and use Create a channel. In the mobile app, choose New channel from the Messages menu. How many channels a team can have depends on its plan; see Plans, limits, and billing.

Select a channel's name above the conversation to open Channel details: who can read it and, for the team's admins, letting people from outside the team in. In the app, choose Members from the channel's menu.

An admin archives a channel from the bottom of Channel details; in the app, open the channel and choose Archive channel from its menu. An archived channel takes no new messages and is hidden from the channel list. Restore it from Archived channels in the Team chat menu (⋯) on the website, or the Messages menu in the app. General cannot be archived.

Guests in a channel

A team admin can let someone from outside the team into one channel, as a guest of the team. Open the channel's Channel details (in the app, Members from the channel's menu) and choose Invite people from outside the team. The channel becomes members only: everyone now in the team stays a member, and people who join the team later can join it from the channel list. This cannot be undone. General, and channels in Personal, cannot have guests.

From Channel details:

• Add people takes a handle. Someone in the team who can use Team chat, or someone already a guest of the team, is added at once. Anyone else is sent an invitation, and joins as a guest of the team with this channel once they accept it.
• Create invite link makes a link that anyone signed in to Magpie can use to join as a guest; someone without an account can create one from the link. A link works for 7 days and for up to 25 people. The link is shown only when it is made: copy it then. In the app, Share a new invite link opens the share sheet.
• Invitations and links not yet answered are listed there. Cancel an invitation or Revoke a link to stop it working.
• Remove takes someone out of the channel. Their messages stay. A guest taken out of the last thing they are in is removed from the team too, and the confirmation says so.

Guests are listed on the team's Members page and count toward its guest limit; see Guests on a team.

An invitation by handle waits on Your teams, under Invitations in Chat, and in Messages in the app, with Join and Decline. An invite link opens the invitation page: sign in or create an account, then choose Join. A guest needs a handle so the other members can tell who they are; someone without one chooses it when they join.

A guest can read and post in their channels, attach images and files, react, reply in threads and delete their own messages. They see each channel's member list and nothing else of the team's Team chat, not even General. Their channels are listed under Shared with you, labelled with the team, whichever team they have selected. A guest can leave a channel with Leave channel in Channel details; leaving the last thing they are in leaves the team.

An invite link that says it is no longer available has expired, was revoked or has been used by as many people as it allows; ask for a new one.

The channel list

Beside the conversation, Chat lists, when there is something in them:

• Invitations: invitations to another team's channel;
• Support: your conversation with Magpie support (Contact support);
• Channels: the channels of Personal or the selected team;
• Shared with you: the channels of teams you are a guest of;
• Requests: direct messages from people outside your teams;
• Direct messages: your direct messages and groups, the same in every team (Message someone directly or in a group);
• Discussions: conversations about a document or a recording session.

A dot beside a conversation marks messages you have not read. For the dot on your avatar, the browser tab and the message sound, see Chat notifications and read receipts.

Write and attach

Write in the message box at the foot of the conversation. Enter sends the message and Shift+Enter starts a new line. Press C to jump to the message box.

On the website, + beside the message box adds images: choose them from Your images or upload new ones. You can also paste an image into the message box or drag one onto it. A message can carry up to 10 images, and can be an image without any text.

In the mobile app, + beside the message field attaches a photo from the library or the camera, a voice note, or PDF, Office, text or archive files of up to 25 MB each. A voice note can be up to 2 minutes long, and a message can carry up to 5 files. Attachments waiting to be sent appear above the field, where each can be removed.

Attachments are visible only to the people who can read the conversation.

In the app, text you have typed but not sent stays in the message field on that phone, for that conversation or thread, until you send it. A long draft is not kept: the app says Draft is too large to save on this device.

React, reply and delete

On the website, point at a message to show Add reaction, Continue in thread and ⋯ beside it. ⋯ opens the message's menu: the reactions, Continue in thread, Copy text and, on a message you can delete, Delete message. Right-click a message for the same menu, except on a picture or on text you have selected. On a phone or tablet, tap or hold a message to open its menu.

In the mobile app, tap or long-press a message, or choose … beside its author, to react, reply in a thread, copy its text or delete it. Copy text changes to Copied once the text is on the clipboard.

On a phone or tablet, on the website or in the app, double-tap someone else's message to add 👍; double-tap it again to remove it. You cannot react to your own messages. Reactions a message already has appear under it; tap one to add or remove your own.

Use a thread when a reply belongs to one message rather than the whole conversation. Continue in thread opens the thread beside the conversation, and Escape closes it. A reply in a thread cannot start another thread.

You can delete your own messages. In a team's channels, a team admin can also delete anyone's message. In a direct message, a group or support, only a message's author can delete it. Deleting the first message of a thread also deletes its replies, and deleting cannot be undone.

Click or right-click a member's name or avatar for their profile card, which shows the identity and team details available to you and can open a direct message with them.

Talk about a document or a recording

A document and a podcast recording session each have their own conversation. Choose Chat at the top of a document, or of a recording session, and it opens in a panel beside it, so you can keep writing or recording while you talk. In the app, choose Chat from a document's menu, or Chat at the top of a recording session's room.

There is one conversation for each document or session, and anyone who can open the document or session can join it. Opening it joins you. Everyone who joins sees the whole conversation, including what was said before they joined. A document's conversation belongs to the document's team: someone who leaves the team leaves the conversation too.

These conversations are kept. They are listed in Chat under Discussions, named after what they are about. Discussions without recent messages move behind Show older; they are not deleted.

A guest in a recording session joins with a link and does not need a Magpie account to record. To use the session's chat, they choose Sign in to chat on the studio page. Sign-in opens in a new tab, so recording in the studio tab carries on; once signed in, they go back to the studio tab and choose Open chat.

Find an earlier message

Chat has no search box. Scroll up and choose Load older messages, or ask the assistant on the Dashboard, for example "find the chat message about the venue". It searches the channels of Personal or the selected team and your own conversations, and links to the conversation; see Use the assistant.

History and plans

On the free plan, each channel shows its 2,000 most recent messages, and a team can have 5 active channels; Pro and the Team plan show every message and allow 100 channels (see Plans, limits, and billing). Older messages are hidden, not deleted, and show again on a paid plan. A direct message shows the history allowed by the better plan of its two people. Messages from someone who leaves the team stay in its channels.

If a message appears in the wrong team, check whether Personal or which team is selected. The status beside the conversation's name shows whether Chat is connected. If a conversation still fails to load or send after reconnecting, Contact support.