Group settings and permissions

A group's identity — its name, description and photo — and the rule about who may post live behind Group Settings. Your own notification choice for the group lives separately, under Group Preferences, because it applies only to you.

Who can change what

Action	Who can do it
Rename the group, edit the description, change the photo	Group administrators
Turn the message restriction on or off	Group administrators
Set your own notification preference	Everyone in the group

Both entries sit in the group's info panel, which you open by selecting the group's name or photo at the top of the conversation. If you are not an administrator, Group Settings is not shown to you at all — only Group Preferences.

Rename the group

1. In the group's info panel, select Group Settings.
2. Select the pencil icon beside the group's name.
3. Type the new name. The field prompts you with Enter new title and accepts up to 100 characters.
4. Select the green tick to save, or press the return key.

The tick only appears once the name actually differs from the current one, so an accidental tap cannot save an unchanged name. An empty name is never saved.

Edit the description

On the same screen, just below the name:

1. Select the description. If the group has none, it reads "Add group description" in grey.
2. Type your text — the field prompts you with Enter group description and accepts several lines.
3. Select the green tick to save.

The description is shown clipped to three lines in the panel, so put the important part first.

Change the group photo

Select the round photo at the top of Group Settings — it carries a small blue camera badge. Pick an image and it uploads straight away, with a progress indicator over the photo while it does. The new picture then appears wherever the group is listed.

If the group has no photo, HushChat draws its initials instead, so there is always something to recognise the group by in the conversation list.

note

Renaming a group, changing its description and changing its photo each add a system message to the conversation naming the administrator who did it. These changes are not silent.

Let only admins post

1. In Group Settings, select Group Permissions.
2. Under Messaging, turn on Only admins can send messages.

The switch describes itself as "When enabled, only group admins will be able to send messages. Members can only read."

The change takes effect for everyone immediately. For members, the message composer at the bottom of the group is replaced by a short explanation — they can still open the group, read every message and scroll the history, they just cannot post. Administrators are unaffected. See Send a message for what the composer looks like when it is unavailable.

Turn the switch off again to give everyone their composer back.

tip

This is the setting to use for announcement-style groups: a workspace-wide notice board where a handful of admins post and everyone else reads.

Choose how the group notifies you

This one is personal — it changes your notifications only, and nobody else in the group is affected.

1. In the group's info panel, select Group Preferences.
2. Under Notifications, turn on Mentions Only.

The switch describes itself as "Receive notifications only when someone mentions you in this conversation."

With it on, an ordinary message in the group no longer notifies you; a message that mentions you by name still does. It is the middle setting between full notifications and muting the group outright.

You want	Use
To be told about every message	Leave Mentions Only off
To be told only when someone needs you	Turn Mentions Only on
To hear nothing for a while	Mute the conversation instead

note

Switches here save as soon as you flip them — there is no separate save button. If the change cannot be saved, the switch flips back to where it was, which is your signal that it did not stick.

What is not here

Anything about a specific person — promoting an admin, removing a member, adding someone new — is on the participant list rather than in settings. See Manage participants. Rules that apply to the whole workspace rather than one group, such as whether calls are allowed at all, are in Workspace settings.