Threads, voice messages and reminders

Three additions to the chat help you keep conversations tidy and nothing out of sight: threads for side discussions, voice messages when talking is quicker than typing, and reminders for messages you want to come back to.

Threads#

A thread is a conversation attached to one message. Its replies do not appear in the room's chat, so the main chat stays readable while a topic is discussed in depth.

Starting a thread and replying#

Move the pointer over a message and click the speech-bubble button Reply in thread (German UI: Im Thread antworten) – or choose it in the … menu or with a right-click (long-press on phones). The thread opens as a panel on the right of the chat; on a phone it covers the chat and X brings you back. The panel shows the message at the top, all replies below and its own input field at the bottom – with mentions, emoji, attachments and voice messages like the chat.

Under a message with replies you see a small bar with the number of replies (3 replies), the people who answered last and when the last reply came. Click it to open the thread.

Threads exist in rooms. In direct messages you reply as before; threads will follow there later. A reply in a thread cannot start a thread of its own.

Following and muting#

You follow a thread automatically when you started the message, replied in it or were mentioned in a reply. For every new reply in a thread you follow you get a notification (Replies in threads, German UI: Antworten in Threads) and a red badge on the thread bar shows how many replies you have not read yet. Opening the thread marks them as read.

In the panel header:

• Follow / Following (German UI: Folgen / Folge ich) switches following on or off.
• … → Mute thread (Thread stummschalten): no more notifications about replies. If somebody mentions you, you are still notified.

Replies in threads do not count as unread messages of the room. The Threads button in the chat header lists all threads of the room – All or Following – with the newest activity first; its badge counts the threads you follow that have new replies.

AI short summary#

Long discussion? At the top of the thread, Summarise (German UI: Zusammenfassen) lets the AI answer What is it about, what was decided? – a short description, the decisions and the open questions. The summary is marked as AI-generated with the model and time. It is shared by everybody in the room and written in the language of the person who asked for it. When new replies arrive, the refresh button turns blue; long threads (20 replies and more) are refreshed automatically every 10 new replies once a summary exists.

The summary is available when the plan includes AI summaries (from Community Pro) and the space allows AI summaries (space settings → AI). AI summaries in threads use the same self-hosted language model as meeting summaries.

Turning a thread into a task or a decision#

In the … menu of the thread panel:

• Turn into task (In Aufgabe umwandeln) opens the task dialog with the topic as title and the summary or the text plus a link to the thread as description. You need the permission to create tasks in the room.
• Record as decision (Als Entscheidung festhalten) writes a decision into the room's decision log (tab Decisions), linked to the thread. Suggestion: the first decision of the AI summary. You can edit the decision afterwards. Guests cannot record decisions.

Voice messages#

When the text field is empty, the composer shows a microphone button.

• Tap it to start recording. You see the running time, the maximum length and a live level display. Stop ends the recording – listen to it with Play, delete it with the bin or send it. The paper plane sends right away while you are still recording.
• Press and hold it to record, release to send (like walkie-talkie apps).

The browser asks for access to the microphone the first time. The recording is sent like an attachment: encrypted, checked by the virus scanner and counted towards the storage of the organisation.

The maximum length depends on the plan: Free 2 minutes, Community Pro 10 minutes, Business 15 minutes, Enterprise 30 minutes. The recording stops by itself when the limit is reached.

Listening#

Voice messages show a play button, a waveform (click it to jump to a position), the length and the speed – click 1× to switch to 1.5× and 2×.

Transcript and translation#

From Community Pro voice messages get an automatic transcript (German UI: Abschrift), made by Coviqo's own speech recognition – no audio leaves Coviqo. It appears a few seconds after sending: Show transcript under the voice message. The transcript is marked as AI-generated, and voice messages can be found through the search by their transcript. There is no transcript when the space has switched off AI transcription or when the speaker has switched on Don't transcribe my voice (Settings › AI & captions).

If the transcript is in another language than yours, Translate into my language shows a machine translation (when the space allows AI translation); Show original switches back.

Voice messages work in rooms and in direct messages.

Video messages#

The camera button next to the paper clip records a video message (German UI: Video-Nachricht aufnehmen; on phones it is in the + menu of the message field):

1. Choose Camera, Screen, Screen + camera (your camera as a small circle over the screen) or Audio only.
2. Record – Pause and Resume as often as you like, Stop when you are done, Discard to start over.
3. Check the preview, move the two handles to trim the start or the end, then Send. Trimming happens on your device; the part you cut away is never uploaded. A progress bar shows the upload.

The maximum length depends on the plan: Free 2 minutes, Community Pro 10 minutes, Business and Enterprise 30 minutes.

Under a video message you find the speed button, captions (in the player's menu, once it has a transcript), the transcript with times (click a line to jump there) and – for longer recordings – chapters and a one-line In short summary. Chapters and the summary are made by Coviqo's own AI and marked as AI-generated. Reply at 1:23 opens the thread with the time filled in; replies that start with a time get a Jump to 1:23 button.

In end-to-end encrypted rooms and conversations the recording is encrypted on your device – there is no transcript, no chapters and no search for it.

Clips#

In voice rooms whose admin allows clips, everybody sees Clips on (German UI: Clips aktiv) next to the room title. Participants can then save the last 15–60 seconds of the call:

• Save clip: press Alt+Shift+C, use the call's … menu, or set a global key in the desktop app (Settings › Hotkeys › Save clip). A dialog shows the clip – trim it, see who is audible, add a description and post it to a channel, save it privately (your private space – if you don't have one yet, Coviqo offers to create it first) or download it. Nothing is uploaded before you decide.
• Your voice, your choice: in the call's … menu switch on Exclude my voice from clips in this room, or in Settings › Privacy & my data › Clips of me Exclude my voice from all clips. You are then neither heard nor shown in anybody's clips; clip makers drop what they had buffered so far. Phone participants are never in clips.
• Record clips on this device (call menu / settings) decides whether your device keeps the last seconds at all.
• Room admins switch clips on in the room settings › Voice & media › Clips (off by default, from Community Pro) and choose the longest clip.

Clips are made on the device of the person saving them. Coviqo's app honours every opt-out, but – like with any screen recorder – a modified app could ignore it.

Reminders#

Want to come back to a message later? Open its … menu (or right-click / long-press) → Remind me (German UI: Erinnere mich):

• In 20 minutes, In 1 hour, In 3 hours
• Tomorrow, 9:00
• Next week (Monday, 9:00)
• Pick date and time … for any time up to one year ahead

Times are in the time zone of your device. A small clock next to the time of the message shows that a reminder is set (hover it to see when). At the chosen time you get a notification Reminder: message from … in … with the beginning of the message – clicking it jumps straight to the message (also inside a thread or a direct message). Reminders work in muted rooms too, because you set them yourself.

• To change a reminder, choose Change reminder and pick a new time; Delete reminder removes it.
• Notifications → filter "Reminders" (German UI: Erinnerungen) shows My reminders: the pending ones with their time, then those sent in the last 7 days. Click one to open the message, X deletes it.
• If the message is deleted, its reminder disappears. Nobody else sees your reminders.

Which reminders and thread replies notify you on which channel (in-app, push, e-mail) is set under Settings → Notifications → Threads & reminders.