Chat

Chat in meil gives you direct messages and rooms with colleagues and other people who use meil. You'll find it at my.onmeil.eu under Chat in the left-hand menu. Direct messages are end-to-end encrypted by default, and rooms can be encrypted when you create them — see Encryption.

The conversation list

Conversations sits on the left, split into sections. Within each section, the conversation with the most recent activity comes first.

Section	Contents
Invitations	Conversations someone has invited you to. Click Accept or Reject.
Rooms	Group rooms, marked with #.
Direct messages	Conversations with one person.
Archived	Conversations you have archived, tucked behind a drop-down button with a count.

A number on the right shows unread messages. A padlock means the conversation is encrypted, and a muted icon means notifications are muted. Rooms that belong to a project room (beta) are marked with a P.

If the list is empty, you'll see “You're not in any rooms yet.” and the Start a conversation button.

Start a conversation

Click New conversation. The dialog has two tabs:

Direct message — Type a name or an email address in the Search for a person or email address field. Type a full meil address and it's looked up directly; type a name and you get a list of active meil accounts. Click the person to open the conversation. People outside your organisation are marked External — see Chat with external people.

New room — Fill in the Room name (for example project-x) and, if you like, a Description (optional). Tick End-to-end encryption (secure room — can't be changed later) if the room is to be encrypted, then click Create room.

Whoever you invite sees the conversation under Invitations and has to click Accept before the two of you can write to each other.

Write a message

Type in the “Write a message…” field and click Send or press Enter. Shift + Enter gives you a line break.

• Show formatting (Aa) opens the Bold, Italic, Strikethrough and Code buttons. You can also type the markup yourself: *…*, _…_, ~…~ and `…`. If your draft contains formatting, a Preview appears above the field.
• Emoji opens an emoji picker. Smileys such as :) and <3 become emoji when you send, as long as they stand on their own.
• File attaches files and images — see Files, images and audio.

The first link in a message gets a preview card with a title and description when the site offers one. While someone else is writing, you see “{name} is typing” at the bottom of the conversation. If you scroll up while new messages come in, the Jump to new messages button appears.

If a message doesn't go through, you'll see “Message not sent. Retry the original message below.” Your text is kept, and you can click Try again.

Conversation info

Click the name at the top of the conversation (Show info) to open Conversation info or Group info. The panel shows the description and Participants with the roles Owner and Moderator; anyone invited who hasn't answered yet is listed as Invited.

In a room you can click + Add people and search the same way as for a new conversation. Owners and moderators can also:

• click Edit, adjust the room name and the Description, and Save
• Remove a participant (not themselves, and not the owner)

The room gets a system line whenever someone is added, joins, leaves the conversation or is removed.

Actions on a conversation

Click ⋯ (Actions) on a conversation in the list:

Action	What happens
Mute notifications / Unmute	You still get the messages, just no notifications. See Notifications and settings.
Archive / Unarchive	Moves the conversation to Archived without you leaving it.
Delete chat (direct message)	Removes the conversation from your chats. The other person keeps their copy.
Leave group (room)	You are removed from the room.
Delete for everyone (room, owner only)	Deletes the room and all its history permanently for every member. You have to type the room name to confirm.

Create a task from a message

Every message has a Task button (Create a personal task from this message). The task lands in the Inbox in Tasks with the source attached. See Create tasks from email, files and chat.

Status

At the bottom of the conversation list you pick your Status: Available, Busy, In meeting or Focus. See Notifications and settings.

One tab at a time

Chat runs in a single tab or window only. Open Chat somewhere else as well and you get the message “Chat is open in another tab”. Close the other tab and click Try again.

On mobile

Chat is built for mobile too, both in the browser and in the installed app (see Mobile App and PWA). On small screens the app shows either the conversation list or the open conversation; use Back to conversations to get back to the list.