Here you'll learn how to use Rocket.Chat as a user.
Conversations in Rocket.Chat are organized into channels. Channels are chat rooms with many useful features.
There are three kinds of channels: public channels, private groups, and direct (1-on-1) messages.
Public channels (also called channels for short) are the most important kind. Use channels for conversations that are open to your entire team. A channel can be joined by anyone on your team.
Channels make it easy to find what's going on with your team. New team members can join a channel and read all the information previously shared by other users.
When in doubt, create a channel. Public conversations help you build a knowledge base of your organization with minimal effort. For example, create a channel for a company department or to discuss a certain programming language.
Private groups are closed channels. They are visible only to their members. Use private groups for subjects that are sensitive, confidential, or limited to a small group of team members.
Private groups can be joined by invitation only. The administrator sets the permissions that determine who can invite others to a private group. By default, only administrators, room owners, and moderators can invite others to private rooms.
Direct messages (DMs) are private, 1-on-1 conversation between team members. You can think of a DM as a private group with only two members.
To help you organize and prioritize your communications, we recommend you favorite (or star) channels, private groups, and DMs.
To favorite a channel, click on the star icon in the upper left hand corner of the message area (next to the room name):
Then the star becomes yellow:
and that channel appears under the list of Favorites in the left-hand pane:
Starring helps you to avoid noise and to focus on what's important to you.
Find existing channels by clicking on the 
button on the left-hand pane. Then click on a channel to preview its contents. If you want to join it, click on the 
button.
There are two notions of leaving a channel:
- To hide a channel is to remain a member of the channel but to remove it from your list of channels on the left-hand pane.
- To leave a channel is to remove it from your list of channels and to leave the channel (i.e., no longer be a member of the channel).
Every channel has an owner, and the owner of a channel cannot leave a channel until setting someone else as the owner of that channel. You can do it via right side panel (Flex tab) and "Member list".
To leave a channel, enter the command /part or /leave in the message window. Alternatively, hover your mouse over the channel in the list of channels on the left-hand side and click on the 
button. On the mobile app, pull from the left-hand side to see the list of open channels, hold down on the channel to bring up the buttons, and click on the button.
To hide a channel, hover your mouse over the channel in the list of channels on the left-hand side and click on the 
button. On the mobile app, pull from the left-hand side to see the list of open channels, hold down on the channel to bring up the buttons, and click on the button.
Sending messages in Rocket.Chat is self-explanatory: type a message in the message box and press ⏎ (Enter) or the Send Button (
).
If you want to send multiple lines of text, press ⇧ ⏎ (shift + enter) to move to the next line.
To get someone’s attention in a channel, type @ followed by their username, for example @guarilha. (They’ll see a red badge on the channel and be notified via email or their mobile device if they’re not online)
You can also notify everyone in a channel by typing @all. But avoid using @all because it notifies everyone. Although @all is useful for important announcements, it can be distracting if abused.
The ability to delete message is configurable under Rocket.Chat Administration panel.
When enabled, you can delete a message by clicking the gear icon (
) in your message and then clicking the trash icon in the menu popover. A confirmation will be displayed before the message is deleted.
It's also possible to hide or show "Message removed" when messages are deleted.
To insert emoji in a message, hit the emoji button to the right of the text input to view an emoji picker. You can also type your desired emoji by wrapping its name with :; for example, :heart: produces ❤️.
You can also react to a message with an emoji.
- On the desktop application: hover over a message, click on the gear icon (
), click on the smiling face icon
and choose an emoji.
- On the mobile application: press and hold your finger on a message to bring up a menu, press
Reactions, and choose an emoji.
Then an emoji appears below the message:
To remove an emoji reaction, click on the emoji below the message. To reiterate an existing emoji reaction that someone else posted, click on that emoji to add to that emoji's counter.