📄️ Email notifications
Batched email notifications for new messages. 15-minute cron-based grouping per thread, customizable HTML template, BuddyPress template compatibility, unsubscribe link.
📄️ Real-time messaging
Better Messages delivers chat messages two ways — AJAX polling (free version) for short delay or WebSocket (paid version) for instant push. Compare modes and configure.
📄️ Modern design
Clean, modern messaging interface with configurable message bubble alignment, combined inbox + thread view, full-screen mode, and brand-matching accent color.
📄️ File sharing
Send images, videos, and documents in WordPress chat. Resumable TUS uploads, in-browser image / video optimisation, EXIF stripping, proxy-protected URLs.
📄️ Emoji picker
Built-in emoji picker with categorized browsing, multilingual keyword search (30+ languages), and 5 rendering styles (Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Native) for consistent cross-platform emojis.
📄️ Sound notifications
Play audible chime alerts for new messages and incoming calls in WordPress. Independent volume controls and custom MP3 uploads per notification type.
📄️ Site notifications
Show pop-up alerts on the site when a user gets a new message. Configurable position, mobile-specific layout, and unread badge in the browser tab title.
📄️ Group conversations
Better Messages supports unlimited-participant group conversations. Any user starts a group thread, invites more later, with full feature parity to 1-on-1 chats.
📄️ Favorite messages
Users can star individual messages in any conversation to bookmark important links, info, or decisions. Dedicated favorites section makes them easy to find later.
📄️ Subjects
Set a subject when starting a new conversation in Better Messages. The subject becomes the thread title in the inbox, making busy conversation lists easy to scan.
📄️ Mass messaging
Send a broadcast message to every WordPress user or specific roles from the admin panel. Each recipient gets an individual conversation; replies route to the sender, not the group.
📄️ Search
Search across all messages in every conversation with one keyword input. Results show matching messages in conversation context with one-click navigation.
📄️ Text formatting
Format chat messages with bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, links, and code via a visual toolbar. Works alongside Markdown for users who prefer typing syntax.
📄️ Customization
Match Better Messages to your WordPress site design — accent color picker, layout templates (standard / modern), message alignment, custom CSS, and white-label options.
📄️ Stickers
Curated and custom sticker packs in WordPress chat. Per-pack role restrictions, multi-language pack variants, inline typing suggestions, drag-and-drop pack ordering.
📄️ Mobile-optimized
Full-screen mobile chat mode, swipe-back navigation, floating chat button from any page, configurable position. iOS and Android browser-ready out of the box.
📄️ Conversation muting
Users can mute noisy WordPress chat conversations to stop sound, popup, and email notifications without leaving the thread. Mentions can still notify if configured.
📄️ Group messages
Auto-create shared chat threads for every BuddyPress, PeepSo, Ultimate Member, or FluentCommunity group. Members sync — joining a group adds them to its chat automatically.
📄️ GIFs
Animated GIF picker in WordPress chat, powered by GIPHY or KLIPY. Trending GIFs, keyword search, content filtering, stable masonry grid, optimistic send.
📄️ Mini widgets
7 mini widgets fixed to the bottom of the screen — conversations, friends, groups, courses, users, AI bots, chat rooms — with Classic Bar or Floating Bubble display.
📄️ Chat rooms
Persistent WordPress chat rooms with role-based access, optional guest entry, shortcode embedding, an online users sidebar, auto-remove for inactive participants, and scheduled message cleanup.
📄️ Reply / Edit / Forward
Better Messages supports threaded replies with quoted context, post-send message editing with edit indicator, and forwarding messages to one or many conversations.
📄️ White label
Better Messages is white-label by default — no "Powered by" branding, no plugin attribution visible to end users. Plus a custom-branded mobile app build service.
📄️ MyCred / GamiPress
Charge users MyCred or GamiPress points to send messages, start conversations, or place calls. Per-role pricing, custom error messages, supports both point systems.
📄️ Mentions
Type @ to mention a user in WordPress chat. Autocomplete picker, highlighted message text, and optional "force notify" override for muted conversations.
📄️ User block
Let WordPress chat users block harassment one-directionally. Per-role permissions and per-role immunity for moderators, with one-click unblock.
📄️ Role-based access
Restrict WordPress chat sending by role. Allow / disallow mode, custom error message, and per-role rate limits on new conversations and replies.
📄️ WordPress API
Better Messages exposes a full WordPress-native developer API — REST endpoints, action hooks, filters, and JavaScript hooks at every step of the messaging workflow.
📄️ Translations
Better Messages is fully translatable via WordPress's native i18n system. Translations install automatically from WordPress.org for any active language; extend with Loco Translate, WPML, or Polylang.
📄️ AI chat bots
Run AI chat bots in your WordPress messenger, powered by OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, or Google Gemini. Welcome messages, placeholders, conditionals, group mentions, scheduled digests.
📄 ️ Pre-moderation
Hold messages for moderator approval before delivery. Per-role pre-moderation, auto-hold first-time senders, email alerts to moderators when review is needed.
📄️ Reactions
React to chat messages with emojis like Slack and Discord. Customizable reaction emoji set, who-reacted popup, works in all conversation types.
📄️ Pinned messages
Moderators pin important messages to the top of chat rooms and conversations. Users pin their most-used threads to the top of the inbox.
📄️ Report messages
Users flag messages for moderator review. Reported messages appear in the admin Messages Viewer for moderation. Crowd-sourced community safety.
📄️ System messages
Inline join / leave / subject / promotion notices in WordPress chat threads. Smart grouping, per-event types, per-chat-room overrides, optional "do not bump conversations list" mode.
📄️ Guest access
Let non-registered visitors participate in WordPress chat rooms without creating an account. Per-room guest access, auto-assigned display names, full feature parity.
📄️ oEmbed support
Better Messages auto-embeds YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify, SoundCloud, and any oEmbed provider as inline players, plus nice link preview cards for regular URLs.
📄️ Bad words filter
Block messages containing banned words before they're delivered. Custom word list, admin bypass option, configurable error message, case-insensitive matching.
📄️ Markdown
Format chat messages with Markdown syntax in Better Messages. Bold, italic, links, inline code, code blocks, and strikethrough render automatically as users type.
📄️ RTL support
Better Messages auto-mirrors its entire UI for right-to-left languages — Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu — based on the WordPress site language. No extra setup.
📄️ Verified badges
Display verified badges next to user names in Better Messages, synced automatically from BuddyPress, PeepSo, and other connected community plugins.
📄️ Auto-delete
Configure WordPress chat message retention. Auto-delete messages and attachments older than N days, plus cleanup when user accounts are removed. Cron-based, GDPR-friendly.
📄️ Message drafts
Better Messages auto-saves unsent message text as a draft per conversation, restored when the user returns. Works across page reloads and browser sessions.
📄️ Message length cap
Cap message length in Better Messages. Live counter at 80% of limit, server-side rejection of over-limit messages, grapheme-aware emoji counting.
📄️ Unread filter
Toggle a busy inbox to show only conversations with new messages. Configurable unread counter (per-message or per-conversation) helps users manage large chat inboxes.
📄️ AI moderation
Auto-detect harmful chat content in 23 categories with the Better Messages Cloud AI or OpenAI Moderation API. Flag-only or hold-for-review actions, custom rules, image moderation.
📄️ AI translation
Real-time AI translation of chat messages between 69 languages. Each user sees messages in their preferred language; toggle to view original. WebSocket-version feature.
📄️ Privacy & GDPR
Better Messages stores all message data on your own WordPress server, sets no cookies, integrates with WordPress privacy tools, and offers a GDPR-compatible WebSocket relay.