Quick answers to the questions people ask most about One Church Chat.

The icon is hidden when any access gate fails: your church's plan doesn't include chat and they haven't added Member Chat Pro; an administrator switched chat off in the Messaging Center; the church limited chat to specific people and you aren't included (or your access is set to Never); or you're under 13. See What is One Church Chat?

That's the standard-tier 30-day history limit. Without Member Chat Pro, only the last 30 days are readable; older messages show as grayed-out locked placeholders. Member Chat Pro unlocks full history.

Messages are capped at 2,000 characters on standard chat and 4,000 with Member Chat Pro. Check whether the church has Member Chat Pro before assuming 2,000.

Channel names work like handles: lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores (emoji and accents are allowed too). Spaces and punctuation are not — so use youth-group, not Youth Group!. Names must be unique, up to 200 characters. In a group, general and group-(number) are reserved.

Expected. The channel admin role only lets them manage members (invite, kick, ban, promote). Renaming or deleting a channel needs the church-wide Full Write Chat permission. For a group channel, it needs group-admin access.

Two things are required: the church must have Member Chat Pro, and you must have the Full Write Chat permission. Without the add-on you'll see a "premium required" message; without the permission, a "chat admin required" message. Files must be PNG, GIF, WEBP, or APNG up to about 1 MB, named 2–32 letters, numbers, or underscores.

Mute (and the Mentions level) only silences ordinary messages — direct mentions, @everyone, @here, and @admin still notify. To silence a channel completely, set its notification level to Nothing.

After 10 minutes of no activity, an Online user is automatically set to Idle; moving the mouse or refocusing the tab restores Online. If you pick a status yourself (Do Not Disturb, Appear Offline, or Idle), auto-idle is turned off for that session.

No. The reported person is never notified, and only moderators (channel admins or chat admins) ever see the report — including who filed it.

Correct. Block only stops one-on-one Private Messages between you, in both directions. It never removes anyone from a shared channel or group chat — the app just collapses their messages and hides their presence on your screen. See Staying safe in Chat: Block, Ignore, and Reporting.

You can't add them to that conversation. Add People starts a brand-new group Private Message once they accept; the original one-on-one stays separate and old messages aren't carried over. A group needs at least 3 people.

A Private Message is automatically frozen (read-only) when its members come to include both a minor (13–17) and an adult (18+) — for example after a teen turns 18. It reads "This conversation is closed because a participant is now an adult." Freezing runs on an overnight process, so it can take until the next day, and the conversation reopens automatically if the membership stops being mixed-age. See Age requirements and child safety in Chat.

Open the channel's Files panel. It lists every attachment from the channel and its threads and posts, newest first, and lets you filter by file type or uploader or search by filename. You must be a member of the channel. See How do I use polls, pins, files, and search in Chat?

There's no answered or resolved status. Moderators can Pin a post, Lock it (only moderators can post afterward), or Close it (read-only until reopened).

Creating a thread is an admin action — a chat admin in a standalone channel, a group admin in a group chat, or a plan admin in a service-plan chat. Regular members can reply in a thread, which follows them into it, but can't create one.

Expected. Church staff with read access (and One Church super-users) can view a group's chat without joining; they appear under the Other section of the member list. See Chat for Small Groups and Service Plans.

For regular members, no — both reading and live updates of a private channel are blocked unless they're a member. The only people who can see one without joining are chat moderators (Full Read or Full Write Chat), group or plan admins, and One Church super-users — all intentional.