Introducing chat search

Announcements
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We’re excited to announce our new chat search feature, which makes it possible to find past conversations in chat channels, group chats, and DMs.

:magnifying_glass_tilted_left: Full chat search across all your channels

You can access full-chat search using the Search chat option in the sidebar. This will let you search across all channels that you can see (even those you haven’t yet joined), your group chats, and any DMs. This is most useful when you’re not sure where to look for a message about a particular topic.

Chat search returns results across multiple channels.
Chat search returns results across multiple channels.1275×1157 68.7 KB

:microscope:Channel-specific search

When you’re in a specific channel, click the funnel icon to open search. This limits search to just the channel you’re viewing. This is handy when you know what channel the message you’re hunting for is in, since it will exclude results from outside the channel that might be off topic.

Search for chat messages within a specific channel.
Search for chat messages within a specific channel.418×523 23.1 KB

:writing_hand: Notes

A few things to note!

  • For now, chat search is distinct from topic search; these are two separate features. We hope one day to unify them into a single, full community search.
  • Chat search can’t find messages that were deleted based on your chat channel retention days or chat DM retention days settings.
  • After updating to the latest version of Discourse, a background job will run to index your chat messages and make them available to search. Until this process is complete (which can take multiple days for communities with lots of chat messages), some messages may not show up in chat yet.

We hope this feature makes it easier for your community members to find past content — please give it a go and let us know what you think!

28 Likes
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Thank you and the team for this. It’s so easy to take things like search for granted.

3 Likes
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Thanks a lot for this feature! I tried it out and it works really nicely.

Interestingly, I found that the 1st result may not necessarily be the earlier message in chronological order. Does this have to do with the indexing?

1 Like
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On which screen? the full chat search or the channel search?

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The channel search. Can repro in lounge.

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can you give me which query you try?

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Sure. I just tried it; it still happens. I searched ‘Prague’.

1 Like
8

it works for me, can you show me what you see after typing prague?

1 Like
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Here’s a screenshot:

Screenshot_20251106_175849_Chrome
Screenshot_20251106_175849_Chrome1080×1649 125 KB

In the screenshot, the 2/2 resilt comes first.

I’m on mobile if it makes any difference.

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Yes it’s expected chat order is reversed, starts from bottom, the most recent is at the bottom

2 Likes
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Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!

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Somehow, chat search is sometimes a little jumpy when I use it on my tablet in Firefox. It works fine for the first results. Then, it shows a result for a fraction of a second but then shows other messages. After that, it works fine for the next result again.
I think it doesn’t happen in Chrome.

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Yes I don’t think we can solve this easily for now sadly.

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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
image382×175 4.95 KB

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

image
image395×304 3.59 KB

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.

2 Likes
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Yes we can improve this, will think of a solution

1 Like
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On a second look it’s actually correctly here in the chat sidebar:

Screenshot 2025-11-13 at 17.41.41
Screenshot 2025-11-13 at 17.41.41546×516 27.6 KB

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Yes, general chat search is already present there. I wasn’t disputing that!

My point was that the only way to actually access it is via having Chat separate sidebar mode disabled (which I acknowledge is the default).

I find that having that disabled creates a tonne of unhelpful visual clutter - this is a big price to pay for a quite buried search box!!!

Having :magnifying_glass_tilted_left: Search chat in the dedicated chat pop-up / chat sidebar (not sure what that is called) makes much more intuitive sense for me (regardless of the above setting).

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@nathank So something like here?

IMG_0044
IMG_00441833×1434 207 KB

Or below next to ‘My Threads’?

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I mean up top, just like the green on here in per chat search:

1 Like
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I think I get what you want now, but I still don’t understand what Chat separate sidebar mode is doing in the discussion? Whatever option you choose here it will be available when chat is in the sidebar.

Now yes, there are not quick access from the drawer. Im not against adding it in the navbar, what do you think @lindsey ?

1 Like