Feature
Sending a file, and a picture of the problem
Half of support is a screenshot. Members and operators can attach files, and images show inline rather than as a link somebody has to trust.
Images show inline
A screenshot is visible in the conversation, which is usually enough to answer the question.
Limits you set
Which file types, how big, and who is allowed to upload at all. Executables are never allowed.
Served over TLS from our storage
Uploads are served over short-lived signed URLs, not from a public bucket.
On Wow and above.
How it works
What happens to a file between the two people
It uploads while they keep typing
The message appears immediately with the picture drawn from the file on their own machine, and settles as the upload finishes. Nobody watches a spinner wondering whether it worked.
Images are re-encoded, not just stored
A photo off a phone is decoded, stripped of its metadata and written out again at a sensible size. That removes the GPS coordinates most cameras attach, which is the part people do not know they are sharing.
Dangerous types never arrive
Executables and scripts are refused, and the check is on what the file is rather than on what it is called. A chat that will pass an .exe between strangers is a malware delivery system with a nice interface.
Served from storage, not from the chat
Files go to object storage and are served from there, so a large attachment does not sit in the middle of the message path slowing the conversation down.
Questions
- What file types are allowed?
- Images and ordinary documents. Executables, scripts and the other formats that exist mainly to run something on the recipient’s machine are refused, by content rather than by extension, and that is not configurable.
- How large can a file be?
- Up to 10MB, which comfortably covers a phone photograph and a document, and deliberately does not cover video — a chat is the wrong way to move a 400MB file and doing it badly would slow the room for everybody in it.
- Is location data stripped from photos?
- Yes. Images are re-encoded on upload and the EXIF metadata does not survive it, so a member sharing a photo is not also sharing where they took it.
- Can I turn uploads off?
- Yes, per site. Some public rooms do not want them at all, and that is a setting rather than a conversation with support.
Put a chat on your site this afternoon
One script tag before the closing body tag. Fourteen days free, and no card until you decide.