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MessagesFree

Talk to your team without leaving the admin.

Private chat for the people who sign in to your site. Direct messages, group conversations, video calls and shared files, delivered the moment they are sent, with an unread badge so nothing is missed.

Three colleagues chatting over coffee

Conversations that stay with the work.

Live, not refreshed

New, edited and deleted messages appear instantly for everyone in the conversation.

Direct, group or managed

One conversation per pair, ad-hoc groups for a project, and standing groups such as "Editors" that only an admin can create.

Call from any conversation

Press Call in a conversation, or Call… and pick up to five people. Everyone else in it is told and can join. What you type in the call lands in the conversation.

Share files

Attach up to 20 files to a message. They go into your Media library, backed up with the rest of the site.

Nothing slips through

An unread badge on the sidebar entry, and a notice when a message has waited ten minutes. Reading it clears the notice.

Drafts that wait

Half-written replies are kept per conversation, attachments included, so you can switch away and come back.

Rules on the server

Who may message whom is checked by the server: admins reach everyone; others reach admins, people sharing a role and people they already talk to.

See it at work

Screens from our demo company, ACME Ltd. Every name and figure in them is made up.

The Messages screen with the Workshop group conversation open, showing messages from four colleagues and a shared photo
A group conversation. Five people in the Workshop group, a photo shared in the thread, and the inbox with unread counts on the left.
A direct conversation between two colleagues in Messages
Direct messages. One conversation per pair. Starting it again opens the one you already have.

See it in 5 minutes

Your first conversation, from a standing start.

  1. Open Messages in the admin sidebar.
  2. Click New conversation in the banner.
  3. Choose Direct message or Group, and give a group a name.
  4. Use Find someone... to pick who to talk to, then start the conversation.
  5. Type a message and press Send, or Ctrl+Enter.
  6. Right-click a conversation to archive it, mark it unread or choose how long its messages are kept.

Built for a real team.

  • Inbox, Unread and Archived lists with a search. Archiving only tidies your own list.
  • Edit your own message for 15 minutes after sending. Delete leaves "message deleted" in its place.
  • Retention per conversation: keep messages for as many days as you choose, up to a site-wide ceiling (90 days by default, 365 at most).
  • Keyboard first: Ctrl+Enter sends; Shift+F10 opens the menu on any conversation or message.
  • Calls hold up to six people, on your own site with nothing to install. Anyone in the call can ring in another team member, who joins that call only and does not see the conversation. About video calls.

Good to know.

  • One permission, Messages - Use, given to Admin and User by default. Take it from a role and the Tool disappears for them.
  • Attaching files needs the Media upload permission. Admins have it; give it to other roles when they should share files.
  • Messages is for signed-in users of your admin. Nothing appears on the public site.

Goes well with

Give your team a place to talk.

Messages is free when you run Domma CMS yourself - install it from the Marketplace. On our hosting it is included with Hosted (£79/month) and Pro.