Conversations

Collab has two kinds of conversations: DMs (direct messages) between you and one other person, and group chats with several people. Both are flat: everyone in them can do the same things, and nobody can be removed. For bigger spaces with roles, use Channels.

Your DMs and group chats are under Messages in the Collab sidebar. Use the DMs and Groups toggle to switch between them.

Direct Messages

A DM is a private conversation between you and one other Pentos user. You don’t need to be friends to message someone.

Starting a DM

  • From the New menu: hover over New at the top of the Collab sidebar and choose DM. Type at least 2 characters of a name or username, then click the person. Your friends are listed first and tagged Friend.
  • From a profile: click the message icon (Message) under someone’s photo, on their profile or in the User Profile panel that opens when you click their picture or an @mention of them in a message. Huddle, next to it, starts a Huddle with them right where you are, without opening the DM.
  • From your friends list: on your profile’s Friends tab, click the message icon (Message) next to a friend.
  • From a member list: click Message next to someone in a Manage panel, such as a group’s members, a channel, a shared chat or a shared file, or in a group’s or channel’s Info member list.

Starting a brand new DM sends the other person a New Conversation notification.

One DM per Person

You normally have one DM with each person. If it already exists, every Message button opens it, and the New > DM search leaves that person out so you can open the DM from your list instead. The exceptions are when the other person has left your DM, or when one of you has blocked the other: see below.

If your last DM with someone went to the Recycle Bin because you both left it, starting a DM with them again usually brings it back, history included, for both of you. If whoever left first never sent a message in it and didn’t start it, you get a new DM instead.

If the Other Person Leaves

When the other person leaves, “{name} left this conversation” appears in the DM. In your list it moves to the bottom of DMs and shows as Unknown User. You can still read everything, but the message box is replaced by a read-only notice. Despite what that notice says, the DM isn’t archived: it stays in your list as it is until you leave it too.

While it’s still in your list, messaging that person from their profile starts a separate new DM, without the earlier history. Once you leave it, the DM moves to your Recycle Bin, where you can restore it for 30 days, and messaging that person usually brings the old DM back with its history.

Leaving a DM

Hover over the DM in your list, open its three-dot menu, choose Leave, then confirm. Leave is the only item in a DM’s menu: DMs have no Info, Rename or Manage, and More in a DM shows only Files, Huddle and Meeting. Leaving a DM affects your access to files the same way as leaving a group.

If You Block Someone

Your DM with them is hidden from both of you while the block is in place, and neither of you can send messages in it or start a new DM with the other. Its history is kept, and it comes back for both of you when the block is lifted. Blocking doesn’t remove either of you from group chats or channels you share. See What Blocking Does for everything else.

Group Chats

Group chats are for conversations with several people when you don’t need a channel’s roles. They’re available on every plan, and anyone on Pentos can be added unless one of you has blocked the other.

Creating a Group Chat

  1. Hover over New in the Collab sidebar and choose Group Chat.
  2. Enter a Group name of up to 50 characters. Names can use letters, numbers, spaces, dashes and emoji.
  3. Optionally add a Description of up to 200 characters, then click Continue.
  4. Under Add members, search by name or username (at least 2 characters) and click Add next to each person. They appear under Selected, where you can take them off again.
  5. Click Create group.

Add at least one other person. A group can have up to 20 people, including you. Everyone you add gets an Added to Group notification.

No Roles

Every member of a group can send messages, rename the group, edit its description and add people. Nobody can remove anyone else, and the person who started the group has no extra permissions in it. Files uploaded into the group are kept in a folder in that person’s Files, though: see Attachments. See Sharing & Permissions for the full list.

Renaming and Describing a Group

Any member can do either:

  • Rename from the list: open the group’s three-dot menu, choose Rename, type the new name (up to 50 characters) and press Enter. Press Escape to cancel.
  • Edit in Group Info: choose Info from the group’s three-dot menu, or click More (the + at the top left of the conversation) and then Info. Click the pencil next to Name (up to 100 characters) or Description (up to 500 characters). Saving an empty description clears it.

Group Info also shows when the group was created and last updated, its members, and its Associations. Click a member to open their profile, or use the buttons beside them: Add friend, when you aren’t friends and haven’t sent them a request, and Message.

A new name appears in everyone’s list, and an activity message tells the group what changed.

Adding People

Any member can add people:

  1. Click More (the + at the top left of the conversation) and choose Manage, or open the group’s three-dot menu and choose Share > Manage.
  2. On the Add people tab (the + tab), search by name or username and click Add next to each person. They appear under Pending until you save.
  3. Click Save.

A group can’t grow past 20 people. New members get a notification and can read the group’s whole history. You can also add people with Share With, or when you @mention someone who isn’t in the group. See Sharing & Permissions.

Leaving a Group

  1. Open the group’s three-dot menu and choose Leave, or click Leave on your own row in Manage > Members.
  2. Confirm.

The others see “{name} left the group” and the group disappears from your list. You lose access to its messages, and Pentos removes your access to every file someone posted in the group that they could share, even if that file was also shared with you some other way, such as directly in Files. Files you own are not affected. To come back, someone in the group has to add you again.

When the Last Person Leaves

Leaving works the same way in DMs and group chats, and there is no “delete for everyone”: a conversation lasts as long as anyone is still in it.

If you’re the last member, the confirmation tells you so, and leaving moves the conversation to your Recycle Bin instead of deleting it. Go to Settings > Data > Recycle Bin and open the Collab tab to restore it within 30 days, or to delete it permanently right away. After 30 days it is permanently deleted, along with its messages and the files uploaded in it. In the Recycle Bin, DMs are listed as Direct Message. A restored group has you as its only member, so add people back from Manage. See Archive, Delete & Restore.

Activity Messages

Collab posts a short line in the conversation when something changes, so everyone stays up to date:

  • People: “{name} added {name} to the group”, “{name} left the group” and “{name} left this conversation”.
  • Group details: “{name} renamed the group to …”, “{name} updated the group description” and “{name} cleared the group description”.
  • Calls: “{name} started a huddle” or “started a meeting”, then “The huddle has ended” or “The meeting has ended”.

Message Features

DMs and group chats support everything in Collab messaging: sending, editing, replies, reactions, mentions and deleting (Message Actions), attachments, formatting, tables and codeblocks, huddles and meetings.

Privacy

  • Members only: only the people in a DM or group chat can open it. Anyone added to a group can read its full history.
  • Encryption: Pentos encrypts messages, group names and group descriptions at rest with AES-256-GCM, using a key unique to each conversation, and everything travels over TLS. This isn’t end-to-end encryption: Pentos decrypts messages on its servers to show them to the people in the conversation.
  • Calls: huddles and meetings run through Cloudflare RealtimeKit, and Pentos does not record them.
  • No AI training: your conversations are never used to train AI models. See Security.
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