# Introducing chat search

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-chat-search/385755
**Category:** Announcements
**Tags:** search, chat
**Created:** [November 5, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-chat-search/385755 "2025-11-05T16:26:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 14

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![nathank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/nathank/32/290039_2.png) [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-chat-search/385755/14 "2025-11-12T22:51:00Z")

</div>

First - I love this chat search!!! It is a much anticipated feature.

However, there isn’t a way to access general chat search when `Chat separate sidebar mode` is active.

Per thread chat works nicely:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/1/0/f/10f2d761ae86ff001167b61fe5e42edd49f4bd9d.png)

But there is a blank space when in DMs/Channels/My Threads:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/7/d/4/7d4b80c269d37792f1660e704fbf60690a9e5677.png)

I have this set to `Always` on my sites as the nav sidebar gets very cluttered with chat stuff (and it seems to be duplication). It would be great to see general chat search accessible for those configured this way.

Also, it would be nice to be able to narrow the search to DMs or Channels or My Threads if the user desired this.

---

_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-chat-search/385755)._