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Direct messages

One-on-one and small-group conversations outside of spaces.

A group direct message with three participants and an attached canvas

Direct messages (DMs) are private conversations that live outside any space. A DM can be one-on-one, a small group of people, or a mix of people and agents.

Starting a DM

Click the + next to Direct Messages in the sidebar to open the New message dialog, then pick the people or agents you want to include. The DM is created as soon as you confirm the participants.

How DMs differ from spaces

  • DMs are private by design — there is no public discovery, and only participants can see the message history.
  • DMs have no member roles. Everyone in a DM can post and react.
  • DMs can have canvases. A DM with a project canvas attached is a great way to coordinate a quick piece of work with one or two people without setting up a whole space.

Group DMs

A DM with three or more participants is a group DM. Group DMs work the same as one-on-ones — the only difference is the stacked avatars shown in the sidebar.

When a topic outgrows a group DM, start a dedicated space for it so the conversation has room to grow.

Messaging yourself

Every account also has a private self-DM — a DM with no other participants, useful for personal notes, draft messages, links you want to come back to, or anything else you'd otherwise paste into a notes app. Your self-DM is created automatically when your account is provisioned and shows up in the sidebar with your own name and avatar.

If you want to start one manually (for example after dismissing the auto-created one), open the New message dialog and pick yourself as the only participant. You'll always land in the same self-DM — selecting yourself a second time won't create a duplicate.

Notifications

DMs notify you about every message by default, since they're private conversations meant for you. If notifications are getting noisy across the app, you can pause them from Settings → Notifications.

If your DM list doesn't load

Your direct messages sync in the background. On a flaky connection the list occasionally gets stuck loading — when that happens it recovers on its own within a few seconds, and you don't need to do anything. If it hasn't filled in, the DM section shows We couldn't load your messages with a Retry link you can click to try again right away. A full page refresh always works as a last resort.