Collab Overview

Pentos Collab is the messaging side of Pentos. It brings direct messages, group chats and channels together in one place, with voice and video calls built in, so you can talk with friends, teammates and collaborators without switching apps. Open it from Collab in the bar at the top of Pentos.

Finding Your Way Around

When you open Collab, you land on Updates, where your Collab notifications are collected. The Collab sidebar has:

  • Your profile card: click it to open your profile, or hover over it for Updates and Tasks.
  • New: hover over it to start a DM, a Group Chat or a Channel.
  • Messages: your DMs and group chats. Use the DMs and Groups toggle to switch between them.
  • Channels: the channels you belong to.

A red dot marks anything with unread messages. Hover over a conversation or channel in the list to show its three-dot menu. Groups have Info, Rename, Share and Leave. Channels have the same plus Delete, and only Admins see Share and Delete. DMs have only Leave.

Inside a group or channel, the More button (the + at the top left) opens Info, Files, Huddle, Meeting and Manage. In a DM it shows only Files, Huddle and Meeting.

Tasks, opened from your profile card, shows your tasks as a board with To do, In Progress and Complete columns, or as a list. Click + to add one.

Your profile has a Friends tab, which lists your friend requests and friends and has a search box for finding people to add. See Friends. Its Preferences tab has your Public profile setting and the people you’ve blocked.

Your Identity

  • User Profile: Set your name, username, profile picture, bio, location and status.

People

  • Friends: Add friends, answer friend requests, and block people you don’t want to hear from.

Conversations

  • Conversations: Private DMs with one person and group chats with several.
  • Channels: Spaces for teams, with Viewer, Member and Admin roles.
  • Sharing & Permissions: Who can do what, how to add and remove people, and how attached files are shared.

Messaging

  • Sending Messages: Write and send messages in any conversation or channel.
  • Attachments: Send files and images with your messages.
  • Formatting: Use the rich text toolbar for bold, italic, lists and more. The editor works the same way in Chats and Collab.
  • Chat Objects: Add tables and codeblocks to your messages, the same way as in Chats.
  • Editing Messages: Change messages you have already sent.
  • Message Actions: Reply in threads, react, mention people, and delete messages.

Calls

  • Huddles: Audio-only calls in DMs, group chats, channels and shared chats.
  • Meetings: Video calls with a setup screen to check your camera and microphone. Starting a meeting needs a paid plan; anyone can join, and Free users join with audio only.

Managing Conversations

  • Archive, Delete & Restore: Channel Admins can archive and delete channels. DMs and group chats move to the Recycle Bin when the last person leaves. Restore either for 30 days.

Details and Settings

  • Notifications: Hear about new messages, mentions, replies, reactions, calls, and being added to groups and channels. Collab’s Updates page lists them under All, and messages, mentions, reactions and friend requests also appear under Social. Call alerts only pop up. Its System tab holds notices from Pentos itself, such as an upload that was blocked.
  • Search: click the search icon in the top bar of Pentos, or press Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows), to find messages in your conversations and channels.
  • Logs: Review a history of key actions, such as creating, joining and leaving conversations and channels.
  • Subscription: DMs, group chats and huddles are on every plan. Channels and starting meetings need a paid plan.

Security

  • Encryption at rest: Pentos encrypts your messages with AES-256-GCM, using a separate key for each conversation and channel. Group chat names, group chat descriptions and channel descriptions are encrypted the same way. Channel names are stored without encryption.
  • Encryption in transit: everything travels between your device and Pentos over TLS.
  • Not end-to-end: 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.

For more details, see Security.

File & Folder InfoConversations