Team Messages

Overview

Team Messages is in-app chat for the crew doing the work. Every team gets one channel, created automatically, so the conversation lives next to the tasks instead of in a separate app — and unlike a plain group chat, it’s linked to the work: when a team finishes a task list, a completed-list chip posts into that team’s channel.

Members reach it from the speech-bubble icon in the header (desktop) or the Messages tab (mobile). An unread count on that icon covers every new message; push notifications only fire when you’re mentioned (see Notifications below), so an active channel never floods your phone.

Requires: messages_enabled feature flag (Pro plan or above). The header bubble, the Messages tab, and the whole feature are hidden when the flag is off.

Permissions

Channel access follows team membership; Admins and the owner can see every channel.

Action	Team member	Admin / Root (all channels)	Non-member
See a team’s channel + read its messages	✓	✓ (every channel)	✗
Post a message	✓	✓	✗
Edit or delete your own message	✓	✓	✗
React to any message	✓	✓	✗
`@mention` a member	✓	✓	✗
Be `@mentionable` in the channel	✓	only if on the team	—
Mute the channel (for yourself)	✓	✓	—

Access follows teams — there’s no separate “channel membership.” A member sees the channels of the teams they belong to; Admins and the owner see every channel in the account.

How it works

Channels

One channel per team, created automatically when the team is created and renamed whenever the team is renamed. Team members see their teams’ channels in the list; Admin and Root see every channel in the account. (v1 is team channels only — general/account-wide channels and DMs are not built yet.)

Sending and reading

Messages send instantly and appear live for anyone viewing the channel. For anyone not currently looking at it, the channel’s unread count goes up (shown on the header bubble, the mobile tab, and next to the channel in the list). Opening the channel clears its unread count. History loads in pages as you scroll up.

When someone sends several messages in a row (within a few minutes), they’re shown as one group — a single name and avatar with the messages stacked together — so a burst of messages stays tidy instead of repeating the sender on every line.

Editing and deleting your messages

You can fix or remove a message you sent:

Edit — hover a message you sent (or tap it on mobile) and choose the pencil, change the text, and save. It updates live for everyone and carries a small “edited” mark from then on. The editor has the same @/# picker as the composer, so you can add or remove mentions while editing. If your edit adds a new @mention or @here, only the newly-added people are notified — anyone already mentioned in the message isn’t pinged again, and a plain text fix or removing a mention notifies no one.
Delete — choose the trash icon and confirm. A deleted message leaves a quiet “This message was deleted” placeholder in its slot (so the conversation doesn’t jump around) and its text is gone for everyone. A deleted message no longer counts toward the unread badge and won’t show as a channel’s latest-message preview.

Edit and delete controls appear only on your own messages. Completed-list chips (below) are system messages and can’t be edited or deleted.

Reactions and emoji

React to a message — hover a message (desktop) or long-press it (mobile) and choose the 😊 to open the picker: a row of common emojis for one tap, or ＋ for the full picker. Anyone in the channel can react to any message, including their own. Reactions appear as small chips under the message with a count; your own are highlighted, and tapping a chip adds or removes yours. Hover a chip on desktop to see who reacted.

Reactions are silent — they update live for everyone viewing the channel, but never send a push, add a notification, or change the unread count.

Typing emoji — the composer’s 😊 button opens the picker to drop an emoji into your message. On a phone the keyboard tucks away and the picker opens in its place, just below the message box, so you can still see what you’re writing; tap emojis to add them (pick as many as you like), and tap the message box again to bring the keyboard back. On desktop it opens as a small popover. You can also use your keyboard’s built-in emoji key any time.

Attachments

Send images and documents in a channel with the 📎 button in the message box. Pick a file (on a phone this offers your camera and photo library too); it uploads and shows as a preview above the box, then Send posts it with your message — a message can carry text, files, or both. Remove a file from the preview with the ✕ before sending.

Opening and downloading a sent attachment: images show as a thumbnail — tap it to open the photo full-size in a viewer with a Download button, or tap the small download icon in the thumbnail’s corner to save it right away. Documents show as a card — tap to open it: PDFs preview in the app (in a new browser tab on the web), and Word/Excel files download. On a phone, saving or opening a file uses your device’s normal save and share options. (Attachments elsewhere in Ziptask — on task lists, task items, and projects — open the same way, from their thumbnail.)

What you can send: images (JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF) and documents (PDF, Word, Excel), up to 20 MB each and 10 files per message. Video isn’t supported yet.
Deleting a message removes its attachments for everyone.
Attachments need a connection — you can’t add them while offline.
Attachments are part of Team Messages (the Pro plan); there’s no separate setting.

Notifications — mentions only

Two separate things happen when a message is posted:

In-app unread count — bumps for every message, so members always see there’s something new.
Push notification — fires only when a member is directly @-mentioned or covered by @here. A plain message never sends a push; it only updates the unread count.

This is deliberate: a busy channel shouldn’t buzz everyone’s phone all day. To silence a channel entirely — including its @-mentions — a member mutes it from the channel header (desktop) or the switcher bar (mobile). Completed-list chips never push.

Channel messages never create a row in the notification bell/drawer — chat stays on its own surface.

Mentions

While composing, typing a trigger opens a picker:

@ — a member. Pick a teammate; when the message sends, they get a “mentioned you” push (unless they’ve muted the channel). Only the channel’s team members are offered.
@here — everyone in the channel. Pushes every team member in the channel (minus the sender and anyone who muted it). We don’t track who’s online, so @here means everyone, not “active only.”
# — a task list. References one of the team’s lists; it renders as a tappable chip (showing the list’s start → due dates, so recurring occurrences are distinguishable) that opens the list. A #list reference is a link — it notifies no one.

A referenced member or list is shown by name/title resolved fresh each time, so renames and retitles always read correctly. If the referenced list or member has since been deleted, the mention renders as a plain, non-clickable label.

Completed-list chips

When a team’s task list has its last open item completed, a ✓ chip posts into that team’s channel — for example, “Kitchen Close completed · 9/9” — with the list’s name (which links to the list) and the time. This posts once per list: reopening and re-completing items does not post it again. Completion chips don’t send a push.

How an owner or admin joins the team chats

An account owner (Root) or Admin can already read and post in any channel — but because mentions and @here reach the channel’s team, they won’t be mentionable or pinged there unless they’re on that team. To take part fully (be mentionable and reached by @here), they add themselves to the team from the Teams page, then mute any channel that’s noisier than they’d like. This is why an owner isn’t pinged by every team’s @here by default — they opt in per team by joining.

Support notes

“I’m not getting notified about messages.” That’s expected — notifications are mentions-only. A member is notified when someone @-mentions them or uses @here, not for every message; the unread count still updates for all messages. Check they were actually mentioned, that they haven’t muted the channel, and that their message-mention notifications are turned on in Account settings.
“A member can’t see a channel.” Channels are per team. Confirm the member is on the team (Admins and the owner see every channel). A member on no team sees no channels.
“The owner wants to be mentioned in a channel.” Being able to read and post isn’t the same as being a member — add them to the team (see above) so they can be mentioned and pinged by @here.
“Reactions aren’t notifying anyone.” That’s by design — reactions are silent. They show up live and update the chip count, but never send a push or add a notification. To get someone’s attention, @mention them.
“Can I get a deleted message back?” No — deleting clears the text for everyone and it isn’t recoverable. The “This message was deleted” placeholder is all that remains.
“I added a mention while editing — were they notified?” Yes, if the person is newly added by the edit (and hasn’t muted the channel). People already mentioned in the original message aren’t re-notified, and editing that only changes wording or removes a mention notifies no one.
Muting is per member and per channel — it affects only that member, and it silences that channel’s mentions too.
Renaming a team renames its channel, and deleting a team removes its channel and messages.