Direct Messages give you a private conversation space with one person or a group. They use the familiar Chat message experience, but the conversation belongs to its participants rather than to a space activity.
Open Messages to see your conversations, choose who you want to talk with, and continue the discussion through topics, messages, files, or a meeting. Direct Messages are private to the people in the conversation. They are not published to a space, and Visual Space does not present them as end-to-end encrypted communication.
The Messages Workspace
The Messages page keeps conversation navigation and the selected discussion together. The conversation panel shows titles and participant avatars, while the main panel shows the selected conversation's topics, message history, typing activity, and composer. Participant controls and meeting access stay with that conversation.
Conversations with recent activity appear first within their section. A dot on a row identifies an unmuted conversation with unread messages. The Direct Messages shortcut can also show a dot when at least one visible, unmuted conversation needs attention.
The panel has two personal sections:
The selected conversation stays beside its private history, participants, topics, and composer.
Selecting a conversation also updates its address. A direct link can reopen that conversation, and an eligible search result can open the relevant message in context.
Start A Private Conversation
Choose Start private conversation to search for people by name, select one or more results, and use Start chat. Search is intentionally limited: you can contact people who share an eligible chat participation context with you, such as people already encountered through spaces you visit. It is not an unrestricted directory for messaging any account.
Starting a conversation with one person reuses your existing one-to-one conversation when one is available. This keeps your shared history in one place instead of creating several private threads with the same person.
Eligibility and blocking rules apply before a conversation begins and when it grows. You cannot start or expand a conversation across a blocked pair, and people who do not meet the shared-chat eligibility boundary do not appear as available participants.
Review History Before Adding People
Adding a person changes who can read the conversation. Use Add participant only after checking both the current history and the intended audience.
A group can retain one-to-one history. When you select several people while starting a chat, Messages begins with a one-to-one conversation and then adds the other selected people. If that one-to-one conversation already existed, its earlier messages may remain in the expanded group. Adding someone from an open one-to-one conversation can likewise expand that conversation rather than create a separate, empty group.
Before selecting Start chat or adding a participant, review:
Check the participant stack and panel against the audience you intend before expanding a conversation.
After a participant is added, the conversation records the change in its message history and normalizes the title to Group DM. You can then use Rename to give the group a clearer name.
Who Can Read A Conversation
Direct Messages are access-controlled by conversation participation. Only current participants can open the conversation and request its private attachments. App-wide search filters Direct Message results to conversations the signed-in person is still allowed to read, then checks access again before opening a result.
This privacy boundary also shapes what Direct Messages do not offer. A private message has no Publish as article action, even if a participant could publish shared content elsewhere. Conversation topics organize private discussion; they do not become activity summaries or space posts.
Blocking is available for a one-to-one conversation through Block user. While it remains in effect, a block prevents the pair from starting a conversation, sending messages to one another, or being combined through participant addition. Blocking is a communication boundary, not a claim that earlier content has been erased.
These controls protect access inside Visual Space, but they are not a cryptographic guarantee. Do not describe Direct Messages as end-to-end encrypted, and share sensitive material according to your organization's own communication policies.
Topics And Messages
Every Direct Message belongs to a topic. Topics divide a long private history into recognizable subjects without connecting it to a space activity or article. Participants can create a topic with a title and remove a topic from the selected conversation. If no topic is available, the composer asks you to create one before sending.
Once a topic is active, Direct Messages share the everyday message tools described in Messages and Replies:
Images, videos, and other supported files use private conversation storage. Their access follows the participant boundary instead of placing the material in a space's shared documents. See Files, Links, and Previews for attachment types, limits, previews, and upload feedback.
Manage A Group Conversation
The participant stack shows who currently belongs to the selected conversation. When a group changes, its conversation row, participant view, and message history update so members can recognize the new audience.
Participants can manage the conversation lifecycle in several ways:
Leaving does not delete the conversation for everyone else. If a remaining participant later adds you again, the existing conversation and its retained history become available to you again. For the complete audience-changing workflow, follow Start and Manage a Group Conversation.
Organize Attention Without Changing The Group
Favorites, mute state, and read state belong to you. Using them does not rename the conversation, change its participants, or rearrange another person's Messages page.
The conversation menu collects personal organization controls without changing the group for anyone else.
Incoming activity refreshes conversation rows and their ordering. When you are already viewing the matching conversation, new messages appear in the feed and are treated as read for that live view. When you are elsewhere, the row summary and unread signals help you return. Participants, Presence, and Unread explains these signals in more detail, while Organize Direct Messages connects favorites, mute, and read controls in one workflow.
Presence, Typing, And Live Changes
Participant avatars and the participant panel can show who is online in the selected conversation. A typing indicator appears above the composer when another participant is actively writing, then disappears when the signal expires. These cues help with timing; they are not permanent entries in the message history.
Messages and reactions also update live for people viewing the conversation. Participants who are elsewhere receive the conversation summary needed to refresh their row and unread state rather than having the private feed pushed into an unrelated screen.
Invitations, Search, And Meetings
Direct Messages can carry a space invitation as a recognizable card rather than an unexplained link. The card identifies the space and lets the recipient visit it or join when that action is available. Receiving an invitation does not bypass the space's normal membership and access rules.
Search can find text from Direct Messages you are still permitted to read. Opening a result returns to Messages, restores the matching conversation, and focuses the relevant message in its surrounding topic. If your participant access changes, search must not expose the private result.
When meetings are available, a conversation can move from text into a private participant-scoped meeting. An active meeting appears with the conversation so participants can join or reopen it, and leaving the meeting returns them to the same Messages context.
Common Questions
Are Direct Messages attached to a space activity?
No. They belong to their participants. People are eligible through shared chat participation, but the conversation itself is not owned by an activity.
Will starting another chat with the same person create a clean history?
No. Visual Space normally reuses the existing one-to-one conversation with that person.
What happens if I select several people in Start private conversation?
Messages starts with one selected person and adds the others. Because the one-to-one conversation may be reused, review the retained history before starting the group.
Can I add anyone to a group?
No. Add participant shows eligible people who are not already active participants, and blocking rules can prevent an addition.
Are my favorites and mute choices shared with other participants?
No. Favorites, mute, and read state are personal settings.
Does muting remove a conversation?
No. The row remains available, but its unread indicator and message pings are suppressed for you.
What happens when I leave?
The conversation is removed from your available list and continues for the remaining participants. If someone adds you again, the existing retained conversation can become available to you again.
Can I publish a Direct Message as an article?
No. Private conversations do not offer Publish as article.
Are Direct Messages end-to-end encrypted?
Visual Space does not make that guarantee. Direct Messages are private to conversation participants and access-filtered in search, but those product controls should not be described as end-to-end encryption.