Messages App Overview

Messages

1. What it is

Messages lets employees send private one-to-one or small-group messages. Each new message is announced in the recipient’s Notifications, alongside tasks and approvals, and read in Messages. It is asynchronous — more like email than Chat — and governed on its own track so an admin can control retention, who may start a conversation, and whether attachments are allowed without affecting Chat channels at all.

• Enablement: Messages requires a license and is disabled by default. An admin turns it on from Admin → General Settings → Messages or from Admin → Apps → All Apps.
• What it is not: Messages is not Chat. Chat provides real-time one-to-one chats, group rooms and channels with presence indicators and typing notifications. Messages provides private, asynchronous conversations, announced in Notifications. Turning Messages off does not stop Chat’s one-to-one chats — they have their own switch in Chat’s settings (One-to-one messages). The two apps are switched on, configured and retained separately — except information barriers, which Chat sets for both (see Relationship to Chat below).

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Admin → General Settings → Messages and turn Messages on. Alternatively, enable the app from Admin → Apps → All Apps → Messages.
2. Open Apps → Messages → Settings to configure its seven settings: group messages, attachments, link previews, Ask AI in Messages, who can start a message, who can view messaging analytics, and the retention window. All seven have sensible defaults (see §5), so the app works immediately without changing them.
3. No role assignment or per-user provisioning is needed. Every member in the organization can send and receive messages once the app is enabled. To restrict who may open new conversations, change Who can start a message to Managers and above, App admins and business admins only, or Specific groups only.
4. Confirm it works: open the Messages client from the profile menu at the top right (Messages). Start a one-to-one thread with another user, send a message, and verify it appears in that user’s inbox.

What employees see: the Messages client — a conversation list with a reading pane — opened from the profile menu at the top right (Messages), from the Messages tab in Communications when your organization has it, or by searching “messages”. On a phone, it is the Messages row at the top of Notifications. The New Message composer is available there, and from the user directory, org chart, and profile pages.

What employees do not see: the Messages app tile and its dashboard. They are visible only to business admins, designated Messages app admins, and anyone named under Who can view messaging analytics (who see the dashboard but not the settings). Employees who navigate directly to Apps → Messages are redirected to the Messages client.

Silent-until-configured pairing: if you enable Messages but turn Group messages off, employees can only start one-to-one threads. They will see no error — the group option simply does not appear in the composer. This is by design, but can surprise admins who expect group messaging to work out of the box (it does: the default is On).

Similarly, turning Attachments in messages off hides the attach and voice-note controls. Files sent through a direct API call while the toggle is off are rejected with an explicit error, not silently stripped.

3. How it fits together

Threads — every conversation is a thread. A thread is either one-to-one (exactly two people) or a group (three to ten people). One-to-one threads are idempotent: starting a conversation with someone you have already messaged reopens the existing thread instead of creating a duplicate. Group threads are always new.

Example: Priya messages Raj from the user directory. A one-to-one thread is created. Later she messages Raj again from a profile page — the same thread reopens with the full history intact. She then starts a group thread with Raj and two others; that is a separate conversation with its own history.

Messages vs. Notifications — Messages has two related surfaces that are easy to confuse. The Messages client is where employees read and write conversations. It is the list-plus-reading-pane opened from the profile menu → Messages. Notifications (the bell, and the Inbox) lists the notices about messages (e.g. “New mail from Raj”). On a computer they are in its Mail alerts folder; on a phone, the Messages row at the top of Notifications opens your conversations. In notification settings they are the Messages category. Opening one takes you to the conversation. They serve different purposes: one is the conversation, the other is the alert about it.

Composing — employees start a new message from the New Message button in the Messages client, from the user directory, from the org chart, or from a profile. The composer opens as a drawer, lets the sender pick one or more recipients, add a subject line and write the first message. Files can be attached in the composer and go with the first message (up to 50 MB each); voice notes are recorded from the reply box once the conversation opens. Reply and Forward work the same way: they open the composer with the subject and a quoted body pre-filled. Forward quotes the text only — attachments and voice notes are not carried.

@Mentions — inside a message body, employees can type @ to mention a colleague who is part of the conversation. The mentioned person receives a separate notification so the mention stands out from the regular “new message” alert.

Reactions — each message offers your company’s reactions — the same set as the feed and every other app, chosen by your admin in Communications settings. Tapping a reaction toggles it; each reaction shows how many people chose it, and whether you are one of them. It does not list who reacted.

Voice notes — when attachments are enabled, the reply box in a conversation on a computer includes a voice recorder. The recorded audio is transcribed automatically while your organization has AI credits available, so the recipient can read it as text instead of playing it back, and its words are found by Messages search and by Ask AI. If a transcript could not be made (for example while AI credits were used up), the person who sent the voice note sees Retry transcription under it, on a computer or a phone.

Drafts — the composer auto-saves a draft as the user types. Reopening the same thread restores the unsent draft. The draft is cleared as soon as the message is sent.

Governance vs. the client — the Messages app page at Apps → Messages is the surface for governance settings and usage analytics. Only admins, Messages app admins and the people named under Who can view messaging analytics see it (the last group sees the dashboard only). The admin-facing dashboard shows total messages, active conversations, participants, and a 30-day trend chart.

Read state — opening a conversation marks it read automatically. Employees can also mark a conversation unread from a specific message so it reappears as unread in their list. Messages has no read receipts: a sender is not shown whether the other person has read it.

Notifications and push — when someone sends a message, every other participant receives an in-app notification (throttled to one unread notification per conversation to avoid inbox clutter). Each message also triggers a mobile push notification so closed apps are woken. People with an email address also get the notice by email, gathered into one daily digest by default (each person can change that in their notification settings, under Messages). The email says who wrote and links to the conversation. It never includes the message text. Mentioned users get a separate mention notification instead of the ordinary one. Mobile push honors the registered Messages notification preference, so an employee who turns push off for that category stops receiving it. Muting a single conversation (from the conversation’s own menu) stops both its notifications and its pushes for that employee only.

Relationship to Chat — Chat and Messages are switched on and off separately, and each has its own settings and retention window. One rule is shared: information barriers. A company admin sets them in Chat → Settings → Information barriers, and they apply to Messages too. They keep applying if Chat is turned off, but while Chat is off nobody can see or change them. Turn Chat back on to change them.

Search — Messages search is keyword-based, not semantic. When an employee searches in the Messages client, results match conversations by participant name, the conversation’s subject or group name, message body text, or the transcript of a voice note — and by participant email only where your People directory shows email. Results are paged, not capped: every match can be reached.

4. Running it

Reviewing usage

Go to Apps → Messages. The dashboard shows six analytics cards:

• Messages sent — all time, excluding deleted.
• Last 30 days — messages in the most recent 30-day window.
• Conversations — total one-to-one and group threads.
• Active (30d) — threads with at least one message in the last 30 days.
• Participants — unique people who are part of any conversation.
• Reactions — total emoji reactions on messages.

Below the cards, a 30-day activity trend chart shows daily message volume.

Changing who can start conversations

Go to Apps → Messages → Settings. Under Who can start a message, choose Everyone with access to Messages (the default), Managers and above, App admins and business admins only, or Specific groups only. This restricts who may open a new thread. Replying is not limited by this setting. (A one-to-one between two people an information barrier keeps apart is read-only.)

Setting a retention window

Under Message retention (days), enter the number of days after which messages are automatically purged. The default is 0, which means messages are kept forever. Retention is governed separately from Chat’s channel retention.

Purging runs in two automatic stages, and the second one cannot be undone. Each night, the retention job soft-deletes every message older than the window: it disappears from the conversation, from unread counts, from search and from My Trash — a message past the window cannot be restored, because the next night’s sweep would only remove it again. A conversation whose every message has been removed says so (“No messages in the last 30 days”). Thirty days later, the platform’s nightly purge destroys that message row permanently, taking its voice notes and their transcripts with it. A message’s effective lifetime is therefore the retention window plus 30 days — a 90-day window means a message is unrecoverable 120 days after it was sent. Files attached to a message go with it: they are moved to Drive’s trash the same night and destroyed 30 days later. There is no on-demand purge. While Messages is turned off, the retention window is paused: no more messages are removed for being old. Messages it had already removed are still destroyed 30 days after removal. The first night after Messages is turned back on, every message older than the window is removed from view at once.

A legal hold keeps the messages it covers for your records (people no longer see them) until it is lifted. Past the window, held messages leave everyone’s view the same night as all the others, but they are not permanently destroyed while the hold lasts, and nor are their files or the earlier wording of edited ones. A hold placed on a person under Admin → Retention & Legal Holds covers every conversation they are in or wrote in. A company admin can export held messages for a legal matter from Admin → Compliance → Chat Export with Include Messages ticked. Once the hold is lifted, the nightly purge destroys them as usual.

Archiving and muting conversations

Employees can archive a conversation from its action menu. Archiving is per-person — it hides the thread from that employee’s list only. The conversation reappears automatically for everyone if someone sends a new message.

Muting a conversation stops its notifications and pushes for that employee. It does not change unread counts: new messages in a muted conversation still show as unread in the list. The conversation stays visible but stops alerting until the employee unmutes it.

Managing group threads

Anyone in a group thread can rename it (up to 120 characters) or leave it. Anyone in it who may start a conversation can add people, up to the 10-person cap. One-to-one threads cannot be renamed or left — archive is the “hide” affordance there.

Editing and deleting messages

Employees can edit or delete their own messages. Edited messages show an “edited” indicator. From 24 October 2026 the earlier wording of an edited message is kept for your organization’s records — a legal hold, a compliance export, or a request about a person’s data — and is never shown to the other people in the conversation or in the admin audit log; it is removed with the message when retention or the final purge removes it, unless a legal hold keeps it. Deleting is a soft delete: the message disappears from the conversation for everyone and the rest of the thread is untouched, but the author can restore it from My Trash for 30 days — or, when a retention window is set, until the message is older than the window, whichever comes first. The delete confirmation says how many days that is. After those 30 days the nightly platform purge destroys it permanently, unless a legal hold covers the conversation; then it is kept, out of sight, until the hold is lifted. This is the same second stage a retention-expired message goes through (see Setting a retention window above).

Mobile access

Messages has a dedicated mobile surface. Phone-class browsers are automatically redirected there. The mobile view provides the full conversation list, message reading, composing, replying, and forwarding — all with the same governance rules enforced server-side. Tablet-class browsers stay on the desktop surface.

Loading sample data

During setup or evaluation, go to Apps → Messages → Settings and scroll to the Sample Data card. Use Load sample data to generate realistic sample conversations. Sample records are tagged and can be removed with Remove sample data without affecting real conversations.

5. Settings

All settings are at Apps → Messages → Settings.

Setting	Default	What it changes
Group messages	On	Allows group threads (up to 10 people). When off, only one-to-one threads can be created.
Attachments in messages	On	Allows files and voice notes in messages. When off, the attach and voice-note controls are hidden and the server rejects uploads.
Link previews	On	When a message has a link, our servers read the page once and show its title and picture under the message; the reader’s browser never contacts the site. When off, no new previews are made and existing ones are hidden. Before 24 Oct 2026 this followed Communications’ Show link previews; a tenant that had that off has this off too.
Ask AI in Messages	On	Lets people ask Ask AI about their own conversations, mark them read, archive or mute them, and send a message as themselves after confirming. When off, Ask AI answers no Messages questions, and the Catch Me Up brief says who wrote and how many messages are waiting without passing their words to the AI.
Who can start a message	Everyone with access to Messages	Controls who may open a new conversation. The other choices are Managers and above, App admins and business admins only, and Specific groups only. Replying is not limited by this setting. (A one-to-one between two people an information barrier keeps apart is read-only.)
Who can view messaging analytics	App admins and business admins only	Who may open the Messages dashboard (aggregate counts and a 30-day chart, no message contents). The other choices are Managers and above and Specific groups only. It never grants the settings page.
Message retention (days)	0 (keep forever)	Auto-purges messages older than this many days, in two stages: a daily job soft-deletes them (they are not offered back in Trash), then the nightly platform purge destroys the message and its voice notes permanently. Effective lifetime is the window plus 30 days. Attached files go with them. A legal hold keeps the messages it covers for your records (people no longer see them) until it is lifted.

A Reset to defaults button restores all seven settings to the values above.

Each setting has a real runtime effect: the group-messages toggle is checked when creating a thread, the attachments toggle gates the upload controls and the server-side accept path, the link-previews toggle decides whether the page’s title and picture (made once on our servers) show under a message, the Ask AI toggle decides whether Ask AI answers about Messages, the initiation rule is enforced at thread creation, the analytics rule decides who may open the dashboard, and the retention window drives a daily automated purge.

Where else the enabled/disabled toggle lives

The master on/off for Messages also appears at Admin → General Settings → Messages. Both surfaces write to the same underlying state, so toggling one is immediately reflected in the other. The governance settings (group messages, attachments, link previews, Ask AI, who can start, who can view analytics, retention) are only on the Apps → Messages → Settings page.

Real-time delivery

Messages are delivered in real time via WebSocket broadcast. When someone sends a message, every participant’s open conversation updates immediately without a page refresh. If the recipient does not have the conversation open, the new-message notification and the unread badge in their inbox update in real time as well.

6. More help

• Messages FAQ — specific setup and operating questions.
• Chat App Overview — the companion real-time messaging app with channels and rooms.
• Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Messages from these articles, and from your own mail: it can list what is unread, open or search the conversations you are in (never anyone else’s), mark a conversation read, archive it or mute it (for you only, as the buttons in your Messages list do), say what Messages allows in your organization, and send a message or a reply as you after you confirm it. An admin can switch this off under Messages → Settings → Ask AI.