Messages FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Messages.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Messages Overview.
Setup
Do I need to configure anything before employees can message each other?
No. Once you enable Messages from Admin → Apps → All Apps, its settings start on defaults that let everyone use it: group messages on, attachments on, link previews on, Ask AI on, everyone with access can start a message, analytics visible to admins only, and retention set to keep forever. Employees can send messages immediately.
Who can access the Messages dashboard and settings?
The Messages app tile opens an admin-only dashboard with usage analytics and governance controls. Only business admins and users with the Messages app-admin role can reach the settings page. The dashboard is also open to anyone named under Who can view messaging analytics. Everyone else is sent to their Messages client.
Permissions and access
I narrowed “Who can start a message” — can everyone else still reply?
Yes. The restriction applies only to starting a new conversation. Replying is not limited by this setting. (A one-to-one between two people an information barrier keeps apart is read-only.)
Why can’t an employee see the “Message” button on someone’s profile?
The “Message” button on the user directory, org chart, and profile panel is hidden when any of three conditions is true: the Messages app is disabled for the business, the “Who can start a message” setting does not include the viewer (for example it is Managers and above and the viewer is not a manager, or Specific groups only and the viewer is in none of those groups), or an information barrier keeps the two people apart — the profile panel then says so where the button would be.
Why can’t someone message a particular colleague?
Your company may keep two groups from messaging each other with an information barrier. A company admin sets these in Admin → Compliance → Information Barriers (whether or not Chat is on), and they apply to Messages and Chat alike. People on opposite sides are left out of the To and Add people boxes, the Message button is not offered for them, and their profile says your company’s policy doesn’t allow it. A one-to-one they already had becomes read-only: no sending, editing or new reactions. A group that already holds both keeps everyone.
Day-to-day
Where do employees actually read and send messages?
Employees use the Messages client, opened from the profile menu at the top right (Messages), or the Messages tab in Communications when your organization has it. They can also start a new message from the user directory, the org chart, a profile side panel, or a performance self-assessment. On a phone, Messages is the row at the top of Notifications. The Messages app tile in the sidebar is an admin dashboard, not a mailbox.
Can employees message a group, and what’s the size limit?
Yes, if the Group messages setting is on (the default). A group thread supports up to 10 participants. Anyone in the group 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 way to hide those.
What can employees put in a message?
Rich text with @mentions of other participants, file attachments, and voice notes (recorded on a computer) that are transcribed automatically while your organization has AI credits available. They can also react with your company’s reaction set (the same one used in every app), and edit or delete their own messages after sending.
What happens when someone sends a message?
The message is delivered in real time to every participant. Each recipient gets an in-app notification (throttled to one unread notification per thread so a burst of messages doesn’t stack rows). A mobile push notification fires for every message. 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. Muted threads skip the notification and the push; their new messages still count as unread in the list. Message text is never included in push notifications, emails or on the lock screen.
Will a new message in an archived conversation bring it back?
Yes. Archiving is per-participant — it hides the conversation from your list. When anyone in the thread sends a new message, the conversation resurfaces for all participants who had archived it.
I can’t find a conversation — can I search for it?
Yes. The search in the Messages client matches by participant name, the conversation’s subject or group name, message body text, or the transcript of a voice note — and by email only where your People directory shows email. Results are paged, so every match can be reached. Search is keyword-based (not semantic).
When something looks wrong
My employee says they’re getting too many message notifications — what controls are available?
Each employee can mute a conversation from the thread menu. Muting stops that conversation’s in-app notifications and pushes until it is unmuted (new messages still show as unread in the list). Separately, employees can manage their notification preferences under the Messages category (Chat has its own, separate categories), which controls in-app, email, and push channels (all default to on).
An employee says their draft disappeared after they sent a message
Drafts are saved automatically per thread. When a message is sent successfully, its draft is cleared on the server immediately so the composer does not still show the text that was just posted. If the send fails, the draft is preserved. A draft is per-thread and per-user — switching between conversations does not lose unsent text.
A group thread shows the wrong name — how do I fix it?
Only group conversations can be renamed (up to 120 characters). One-to-one threads always display the other person’s name and cannot be renamed. To clear a custom group name back to the default participant list, rename it with an empty value.
Why does the thread only show the most recent messages?
The Messages client loads the last 50 messages when you open a conversation. A “Load earlier messages” link appears at the top if there are older messages. Each page loads 50 more.
Can we export someone’s Messages for a legal matter?
Yes — a company admin can, from Admin → Compliance → Chat Export, with Include Messages (direct and group messages) ticked (it is by default). Choose up to 50 people and a range of days (at most 3 years). The file holds every Messages conversation those people were in during those days, with every message sent in them by anyone in the conversation — deleted ones, earlier versions of edited ones, and messages the retention window removed from view while they are still kept (30 days after, or as long as a legal hold lasts) — beside their Chat conversations. Only the admin who started it can download it, for 7 days, and every export is recorded with that admin’s name. Each conversation’s file also says who renamed a group, added people or left during those days. Messages records those changes from October 26, 2026, so someone who left a conversation before then without writing in it is not found through it. Place a legal hold on the people first so nothing is purged meanwhile. A request about a person (Admin → Retention & Legal Holds → Requests about a person) still makes a copy of just the Messages that person wrote.
Licensing and limits
Does Messages require a separate licence?
Messages requires a licence to enable, but it is included with OneMango at no additional cost as a platform-included capability. It is not sold as a standalone add-on, and sending mail is not metered; transcribing a voice note or asking Ask AI about your mail draws your organization’s AI credits, like every AI feature. An admin enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps.
Are there limits I should know about?
- Group size: 10 participants per thread.
- Group name length: 120 characters.
- Messages loaded per view: 50 at a time, with pagination for older messages.
- Search results: paged — every match can be reached.
- Reaction emoji: your company’s reaction set — the same in every app, chosen by your admin in Communications settings.
- Retention: configurable in whole days; 0 means keep forever. Deleting is permanent and happens in two automatic stages. The daily retention job soft-deletes messages past the window — they drop out of every conversation, unread count, and search result that night, and from Trash too: a message past the window cannot be restored, because the next night’s sweep would only remove it again. Thirty days on, the nightly platform purge destroys the message and its voice notes for good. A message’s effective lifetime is therefore the retention window plus 30 days, and nothing brings it back after that. Files a message carried go with it — to Drive’s trash the same night, then destroyed 30 days later. There is no on-demand purge. Turned off, Messages pauses the window; the first night it is back on, everything 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: they leave view past the window like every other message, but they are not permanently destroyed while the hold lasts, and nor are their files or earlier versions. A hold on a person (Admin → Retention & Legal Holds) covers every conversation they are in or wrote in.
More help
- Messages Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Messages questions 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.