Chat themes, starred messages, and forwarding

Dress up a chat, keep the messages that matter, and pass the good ones on.

Beyond sending and reacting, every chat has a few quality-of-life tools: themes to make it look like yours, stars to keep track of the important bits, and forwarding to pass a message along. All three live in two menus: the ⋮ menu in the chat header, and the menu you get by long-pressing a message (right-click on desktop).

Chat themes

Open the ⋮ menu in the chat header and tap Chat theme. There are 24 presets across three styles, Solid (single hue, calm and clean), Gradient (two- or three-stop backgrounds), and Pattern (subtle textures behind the bubbles), each with a live preview. Tap one to apply it; tap the selected theme again to go back to the default.

Want your own? Scroll to Custom and tap Create custom: pick a start colour, an end colour, and an angle, and the bubble colour matches automatically.

Themes are shared

A theme is set per chat, and everyone in the chat sees your choice. Pick accordingly before applying Hearts to the flatmates group.

Screenshot: the Chat theme picker with Solid, Gradient, and Pattern sections

Starred messages

1

Star it

Long-press the message (right-click on desktop) and tap Star. The address, the door code, the "I'll bring the cake" promise. Unstar from the same menu.

2

Find it again

Open the chat header's ⋮ menu and tap Starred messages. Toggle between This chat and All chats to see stars from just this conversation or every conversation you're in.

3

Jump to it

Tap a starred message and PopIn scrolls the chat right to it, even in another conversation.

Forwarding

Long-press a message and tap Forward. The Forward to… picker opens with a search box and your conversations, tick as many as you like and tap Forward to send it to all of them at once. The copy lands with a small Forwarded label so nobody mistakes it for your own words.

The rest of the long-press menu

The same menu holds quick reactions, Reply, Copy, Edit, Pin, and delete options. For those, see Reactions, replies, and pins. Group housekeeping lives in Managing group chats.

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