Direct and group chats
Start a one-to-one chat with a teammate or create a group with several members. Open New chat, pick who to include, and start typing. New members you add later receive the shared history they’re meant to see.Working with a message
Long-press (or right-click) a message for its actions:Reply
Quote a message inline so the context travels with your answer.
Reply in thread
Branch a focused side-conversation off any message without derailing the main chat.
React
Add an emoji reaction from the picker; tap again to remove yours.
Edit & delete
Fix or remove something you sent — edits are marked, deletes remove it for everyone.
Pin
Pin key messages to the top bar so the whole chat can find them.
Attach files
Send images, video and files — encrypted the same way as messages.
Sending and delivery status
Messages appear the moment you send them. If one fails to go out, it’s flagged with a one-tap retry rather than lost. As it travels you see its status — sent, then delivered when it reaches a recipient’s device, then seen once read — and a typing indicator shows when someone’s replying.An organization can switch off typing indicators and delivery/read receipts for maximum privacy — see Accounts & privacy.
Attachments
Use the paperclip in the composer to send an image, a video or any file. It’s encrypted on your device before it leaves, stored as ciphertext, and decrypted only for the people in the chat. Images and videos preview inline — videos play right in the chat — and large files upload in resilient chunks, so a dropped connection retries the affected piece instead of restarting the whole transfer. Other files appear as a download chip.Search
Because the server only holds ciphertext, search runs on your device: Bastion decrypts your recent messages locally and searches those. Open search from the chats list, type a term, and jump straight to a hit.Managing a chat
Open a chat’s info page (from the header) to see its members, add people, and check per-member safety numbers to confirm no one has been impersonated — see Security.Adding a member seals the chat’s current key to them so they can read the history the group shares. Only owners and admins can add members to a chat.