Photos and videos
Any conversation can carry images and video. The attach control sits to the left of the composer — the + button — and everything you attach can travel with a caption.
Attach from the composer
The two platforms open different pickers from the same + button. Web opens a small menu; iOS and Android open a panel of tiles where the keyboard was.
On the web, select + and choose:
| Menu item | What it opens |
|---|---|
| Upload Images & Videos | Your file browser, filtered to images and video |
| Upload Documents | Your file browser, unfiltered — see Documents and downloads |
| Create Poll | The poll composer — see Polls |
On iOS and Android, select + and choose the Photos tile. HushChat opens its own gallery sheet rather than the system picker, so you can pick several items and caption them in one pass.
The gallery sheet (iOS and Android)
The sheet is titled Photos. The first time you open it, it asks for access:
Allow photo access to pick images from your library.
Select Allow access to grant it.
- Tap photos and videos to select them. Each one picks up a number showing its position in the batch, and videos show their length in the corner.
- Selected items appear as a row of thumbnails along the bottom. Tap a thumbnail to make it the active one.
- With a photo active, tap the pencil to crop or rotate it.
- Type into
Add a caption…to caption the active item. Each item keeps its own caption. - Tap send. The badge on the send button shows how many items are going.
Scroll the sheet down by its handle, or tap the close button, to back out without sending.
Cropping and rotating
Selecting the pencil on a photo opens the crop editor. Drag the corner handles to resize the crop frame, drag inside the frame to move it, and use the rotate control to turn the image 90° at a time. Confirm with the check mark, or close it to keep the original.
The web preview has an Edit button on images that opens the same kind of editor before you send.
Editing happens on your copy. The original photo in your library or on your disk is never changed.
Drag and drop, and paste
Both of these are web behaviours. On iOS and Android, use the + button instead.
- Drag and drop. Drag files from your desktop onto an open conversation. The window shows a Drop files here target while you are dragging. Release to load them into the preview.
- Paste. Copy an image, then paste it into the caption box of the preview. Anything on your clipboard that is a file gets attached instead of pasted as text.
The preview before you send
On the web, attaching files opens a preview instead of sending immediately. From there you can:
- Select any file in the list to preview it and give it its own caption.
- Remove a file you did not mean to include.
- Select Add to attach more. When you have reached the cap, that button reads Limit instead.
- Select Cancel to discard the batch, or send it. The send button counts the batch, for example
Send (3).
You can attach up to 10 files at once. Going over that shows
You can only attach up to 10 files in total and nothing is attached.
How photos arrive in the conversation
Sent images and videos are laid out as a grid inside the message bubble rather than as separate messages:
| Number of images | Layout |
|---|---|
| 1 | One large image |
| 2 | Two side by side |
| 3 | One large, two stacked beside it |
| 4 or more | A 2 × 2 grid |
Only the first four are drawn. If the message carries more, the fourth tile shows how many are left behind it. Select any tile to open the full-screen viewer, where you can move between the items in the message.
File sizes
Every attachment has a maximum size, and oversized files are rejected before anything is uploaded — the file is skipped and you get a message naming it and saying it is too large. The rest of the batch still sends.
Separately from the per-file size, everything you upload counts against your monthly upload allowance. See Upload limits for what happens when you run out.