Hey all, here’s another preview of a new concept in Mattermost we’re calling ‘ephemeral messaging’. This capability is designed for organizations that need to minimize the data stored on their servers to prevent compromised data in the event of a breach. Ephemeral messages ‘self-destruct’ after a set expiry time and cannot be retrieved from the server—they cease to exist.
DISCLAIMER: This is an early preview that will likely undergo further iterations as we get input from our customers and stakeholders. We don’t yet have a roadmap target date.
Here’s a quick demo video of the feature:
Showing ephemeral messages in a channel
There are two types of ephemeral messages: “Expiring messages” and “Burn-on-read messages”. Here’s how they will behave in a channel.
Expiring messages
Expiring messages won’t initially show any differently in the channel. Once they are within 30 seconds of expiring, a countdown timer will display call attention to the fact the it will expire soon. Once the time expires, the message is deleted from the channel.
Burn-on-read messages
Burn-on-read messages are accompanied with a ‘Mark read’ button. When this button is clicked, the message is deleted from the channel. These messages will remain in the channel until they are marked read up to a maximum set time.
Setting up ephemeral messages in a channel
To set up ephemeral messaging, open up the channel settings and navigate to the “Ephemeral messaging" section. From here you can enable ephemeral messaging by choosing either ‘Expire after’ or ‘Burn on read’.
Message expiry time
With this option, you can set an expiry time for messages in the channel by selecting ‘Expire after’ and then choosing a set time for the messages to be removed.
Burn-on-read
The other ephemeral message option is ‘Burn-on-read’. When this is selected, messages in the channel are removed when read. With this option, a maximum time is also selected to prevent messages from sitting in a channel too long if no one has read it.
Let us know what you think
We’d love to hear your feedback about this capability. Would your organization find value in this? Drop us a line and let us know what you think. Connect with me on the mattermost community UX Design channel or reach out to your customer success team to connect.