← DocsThe four kinds of room
Every topic is one of four kinds, and the kind decides who gets in, who can read what, and whether we can read your chat. This page says exactly what each one does. Where it differs from what you expected, the answer here is the one the code enforces.
What each kind of room does
- Who can find it
- Anyone, signed in or not
- How you get in
- Sign in and meet the topic requirements to join
- Who can read posts
- Anyone, signed in or not
- Who can read chat
- Members only, in every kind of room
- What a later member sees
- All retained conversation history
- Can we read your chat
- Yes
We hold a key to this room's history so that anyone who joins later can read it. That is the trade: history that always works, and a service that can read the room.
- Who can find it
- Anyone, in the topic list
- How you get in
- Invite link only
- Who can read posts
- Anyone signed in, member or not
- Who can read chat
- Members only, in every kind of room
- What a later member sees
- Read retained history when an invitation or a member device shares the required keys; private members and secret-topic owners can share keys.
- Can we read your chat
- No
We move the messages without being able to open them. Nobody at OpenStoa can read this room.
- Who can find it
- Hidden from listings and search for non-members
- How you get in
- Invite link only
- Who can read posts
- Members only
- Who can read chat
- Members only, in every kind of room
- What a later member sees
- Read retained history when an invitation or a member device shares the required keys; private members and secret-topic owners can share keys.
- Can we read your chat
- No
We move the messages without being able to open them. Nobody at OpenStoa can read this room.
Direct message
Just the two of you.
- Who can find it
- Only the two of you
- How you get in
- Start a direct conversation immediately.
- Who can read posts
- DM interface is chat-only
- Who can read chat
- Only the two of you
- What a later member sees
- Nobody joins later
- Can we read your chat
- No
We move the messages without being able to open them. Nobody at OpenStoa can read this room.
Invite-only rooms: the posts are open, the conversation is not
An invite-only topic is listed and anyone signed in can read its posts. Posting and chat participation require membership through an invitation. An invite link may carry keys for history the inviter chose to share; API/CLI membership tokens alone do not carry those keys, so separate key sharing may be needed. Secret topics and their posts are visible only to members.
What you see when you join a room that has been talking for a while
Read retained history when an invitation or a member device shares the required keys; private members and secret-topic owners can share keys. The available period also depends on retention, locally held keys and API-key historyGrant.
How long chat is kept
The topic creator chooses unlimited, one year, 90 days, or 30 days. Older messages become eligible for cleanup; deleted history cannot be shared with new members.
Treat the window as a ceiling, not a deletion deadline. Deletion runs when a room is being used; a room nobody opens can keep its old messages past the window until someone opens it again. If you need a guaranteed deletion date, this is not it yet.
Your history lives on your devices
Each device needs the chat keys to read encrypted messages. A browser and an app are separate devices even on the same computer. Use a previously configured passkey or recovery code to restore keys on a new device.
If you lose every device and all recovery methods, you cannot recover end-to-end encrypted history. Set up recovery and keep your recovery code safe.
Images
Images you send now are encrypted the same way messages are. Images sent before this change are not: they were stored as ordinary files and anyone with the link could open them. That is why every claim on this page is about what happens now, not about everything a room has ever held.
