Send a chat message

Send instant messages to a single recipient or to a group of people within your organization.

To send a chat message, start a chat, type your message, and then press Enter. Edit a chat message that you just sent. To enhance your messages, format your text using markup and add emoji symbols. Reply directly to other messages, address specific people in conversations, type commands, and add media to your chats.


You can edit a previously sent chat message up to 60 seconds after you sent it.

  1. Click Edit next to the chat message or click the up arrow key on your keyboard. A new chat edit window opens. 
  2. Change your message and press Enter to save your changes. Your changes appear in the chat room with “(edited)” below the chat.
    Notes:
    • If you decide not to save your edit, press Esc to cancel.
    • If you do not press Enter before the countdown timer reaches zero, the edit window closes without saving your changes. 
    • When you edit a chat, Genesys Cloud sends no new notifications.
    • You can edit the message as many times as you want, as long as your edits are within the 60-second time limit.
  3. Alternatively, you can type the following command to substitute the original message with a new one:

    s/former message/new message

    Note: When you use this command, you still have 60 seconds to replace your message, but the countdown timer does not appear.

Use simple markup to add formatting to chats. For a complete list of markup possibilities, see Format text in chats.

Format Use For example, type this… To send this…
Italic Single asterisks or underscores

Here is some *italic text* in a chat.

(Or substitute asterisks for underscores.)

Here is some italic text in a chat.
Bold Double asterisks or underscores

Here is some **bold text** in a chat.

(Or substitute double asterisks for double underscores.)

 Here is some bold text in a chat.
Strikethrough Double tilde symbols (~~)

Here is some ~~strikethrough text~~ in a chat.

 Here is some strikethrough text in a chat.
Highlight Backticks (`)

Here is some `highlighted text` in a chat.

 Here is some highlighted text in a chat.

  1. Click the emoji icon in the chat window.

  2. Select a category at the top of the emoji menu and scroll to view different emojis in each category.

  3. Select an emoji. 

  4. Press Enter to send your message with the emoji.

Note: If you start a chat message with the loudspeaker emoji, then the background color of your message becomes yellow.

Use to mention a specific person in a group chat room and invite them to that chat room. 

  1. In a chat message, type and begin to type a person's name.

  2. To address a comment to a specific person or invite them to the chat room, select a name from the list of suggestions.

  3. Press Enter. The person's name appears as a hyperlink in your message in the chat room.

  4. To open that person's profile page, click the @username hyperlink.

Notes: 

  • If you @mention someone in a group chat, Genesys Cloud prompts you to decide whether to add the user or just mention them.
  • If you @mention someone in a one-to-one direct chat room, Genesys Cloud does not invite that person to the direct chat room.

To quote and reply directly to a specific person in a group chat or private chat room, beside the line you want to quote, click Quote .

  1. To the right of the chat that you want to quote and reply to, click Quote .
  2. If you are in a group chat room, you can do any of the following:
    • To reply to the whole room, select that chat room.
    • To reply to a person directly in a one-to-one chat, select the person.
    • To reply to a different chat room, select another chat room from the chat roster.  
  3. In the chat reply window, type your message and press Enter. Your chat message and the original chat message appear in the chat room.

Chat commands allow you to control and add features to a chat room without using your mouse.

To use chat commands, type a slash in any chat room and click a command from the command list, and press Enter. Alternatively, type the whole command. Press Enter again to run the command.

Type this… To do this…
/leave Leave and close a chat.
/phone Make a phone call to the person that you are chatting with in a one-to-one chat.
/video Video chat with the chat room.
/selfie Take and instantly send a picture using your computer’s camera.
/pref Open the Preferences dialog box.
/mute Turn off notifications for the chat room.
/unmute Turn on notifications for the chat room.
/collapse Collapse all images in the chat room.
/expand Expand and show all images in the chat room.
/presence and presence

Set your presence to Available, Away, Busy, or Out of Office. For example, to set your presence to Available, type the following and press Enter:

/presence available 
/whisper @mention message

Send a direct message to a person without leaving the current room. For example, to send a direct message from a chat room, type the following and press Enter:

/whisper [@Dex Cooper] Hi Dex!
/last Switch back to the previous chat room.
/dnd Set your presence to Busy. 
/afk Set your presence to Away.
/popout Open the current chat room in a new window. If you are on a video chat in that chat room, the video chat also moves to the new window.
You can use this command to keep multiple chat rooms open at the same time. 
/giphy and a search term

Insert a gif from the Giphy website. For example, to select a cat gif from www.giphy.com to display in the chat room, type the following:

/giphy cat 

Note: Your admin can disable the /giphy function.
/search and a search term Open the chat room’s search panel and search for a term. For more information about searching in a chat room, see Search chat room history. 

Send a specific hexadecimal color sample in a chat.

  1. Type @ and the six character hexadecimal color code.
    For example, to show light blue in the chat room, type the following:
    @#66CCFF 
  2. To send the chat message, press Enter. 
    The color appears below your chat message.

To clear the orange line that shows you have new unread messages, do one of the following:

  • Scroll to the most recent message.
  • Respond to the conversation with a new message.
  • Press Esc.
  • In the chat room, click New Messages.

To view and navigate to recent chat rooms and messages quickly, use chat quick access and its keyboard shortcuts. 

To use chat quick access, above the Chats roster, click Quick chat access or the keyboard shortcut for your operating system.

To search for a person or group, type the first few letters or a keyword for the person or group that you seek. Use your pointer or keyboard shortcuts to navigate among the results. By default, chat quick access displays the 10 most recent chat conversations. For more information about keyboard shortcuts, see Use chat quick access.

Close a chat conversation, stop receiving notifications for it, and remove it from your current chat categories.

Hover your mouse pointer over the chat that you want to close, and click Close when it appears.

The chat moves to the Recently Closed category in the chat roster where you can select it to reopen it for a limited time.

Note: If you are a member of an official group and you close the group’s chat room, the room reopens when someone sends a chat message in that room.

Notes: 
  • When you try to join a group chat room that is full, you can only browse the group chat's history. You cannot join the chat, post messages, or search chat history until other users leave the chat room. For more information, see What does it mean if the group chat room is full? 
  • Chat conversations are permanent, and you cannot manually delete them.