Direct Messages

Included in Free - This feature is available in the free version of MediaVerse.

Send private messages, share photos, record voice notes, and have real conversations - all without leaving your media community.

What You Can Do

• Send a private message to any member directly from their profile
• Attach photos, videos, or audio, or share a media item from the gallery straight into chat
• Record and send short voice messages
• React to individual messages with any emoji
• See typing indicators and read receipts in real time
• Mute noisy conversations, pin important ones, or archive old chats
• Search across all your messages to find anything instantly
• Control who can message you: everyone, followers only, mutual followers only, or nobody

How It Works (for Users)

Starting a Conversation

1. Visit any member’s profile page
2. Click Message - the chat panel opens in the bottom-right corner with that conversation ready
3. Type your message and press Enter to send

To start a conversation without visiting a profile:

1. Click the chat icon at the bottom of any page
2. Click the compose icon inside the chat panel
3. Search for the member by display name and select them. Search never matches login names

Sending a Voice Message

1. Open a conversation
2. Click the microphone icon in the message bar
3. Hold to record your message, then release to send
4. The recipient sees a playable audio clip in the conversation

Sharing a Photo in Chat

1. Open a conversation
2. Click the media icon (photo frame) in the message bar
3. Browse your uploaded media and click any item to share it directly into the chat

Files you attach in a chat stay in that conversation. They do not appear in My Media, the media list or the WordPress Media Library, and only the people in the conversation can open them. A file you attach but never send is deleted after a day. Developers can change that with the mvs_unsent_chat_file_hours filter.

Managing Conversations

Action	How to do it
Mute	Open the conversation menu and click Mute - notifications are suppressed
Pin	Click Pin to keep the conversation at the top of your list. Only pinned conversations show the “Pinned” label
Archive	Click Archive to hide it from the main list. Find archived chats under the Archive tab
Search	Click the search icon in the panel header and type any word or phrase

Message Requests

If a member has restricted who can message them to followers only, your message goes to their Requests tab rather than their main inbox. They can accept or decline the request.

• Accept - Your conversation moves to their main inbox and messaging continues normally
• Decline - The request is removed. You are not notified of the decline

What to expect in a conversation

• A conversation opens at the newest message and stays there while photos and videos load.
• A new conversation with no message yet is not shown to the other member until you send the first message.
• The typing indicator clears as soon as the message is sent.
• If a message is refused, the reason appears on the message and there is no Retry button.
• If you block a member, or they block you, neither of you can reopen the conversation, and neither sees the other’s online status.
• A deleted message has no menu, reactions or Reply.

For Site Owners

1. Go to MediaVerse > Settings > Messages.
2. Messages turns private messaging on or off for the whole site (on by default). Off, the chat, the /messages/ page, Message buttons, the messaging API and Pro group chat all disappear, and so do the Messages pages of integrations built on MediaVerse, such as BuddyNext. Conversations are kept for when you turn it back on.
3. Who can send messages sets who may start a conversation: everyone, followers, mutual followers, or nobody. Nobody stops new messages while members keep reading the conversations they already have.
4. A member can make their own setting stricter than the site’s (for example, mutual followers only), never looser.
5. Set a Minimum Account Age (in days) to stop brand-new accounts from sending messages.
6. The chat panel appears automatically for signed-in members, no shortcode needed. Chat Panel Visibility limits where it shows: everywhere (default), MediaVerse pages only, BuddyPress pages only (when BuddyPress is active), or never (members use only the /messages/ page).
7. Online Status Visibility sets who can see that a member is online: everyone (default), followers only, or nobody. How often the chat checks for new messages is set in code, see Transport below.

Messaging yourself is refused with “You can’t send a message to yourself”.

Database Tables

Table	Purpose
mvs_conversations	One row per conversation, stores metadata (muted, pinned, archived state per participant)
mvs_conversation_participants	Maps users to conversations (supports future group chat expansion)
mvs_messages	Individual messages with content, type, read status, and soft-delete flag
mvs_message_reactions	Emoji reactions attached to individual messages

Opening a Conversation

There are three ways to start or open a conversation:

• From a profile page - Click the Message button on any user’s profile. The chat panel opens with that conversation pre-loaded. No searching required.
• From the chat panel - Click the compose icon inside the chat panel and search by display name.
• Deep links - Link directly to a conversation or user using a URL fragment:

Fragment	Opens
#mvs-chat/{conversationId}	A specific conversation by ID
#mvs-chat/user/{userId}	The conversation with a specific user (creates one if none exists)

Chat Panel Features

Feature	Description
Text messages	Plain text with @mention support
Media attachments	Attach images, video, or audio. MediaVerse is a media platform, so documents (PDF, DOC, ZIP) are not accepted in chat as of 2.2.0 - a developer can extend the list with the mvs_dm_allowed_file_types filter. While a file uploads, the composer shows an “Uploading…” chip and Send waits for the upload to finish
Media sharing	Share a MediaVerse media item directly into a conversation
Voice messages	Record and send short audio clips
Emoji reactions	React to individual messages with any emoji
Typing indicators	Shows a live indicator when the other user is typing
Read receipts	Delivered and read timestamps shown per message
Message deletion	One “for everyone” control on your own message: Unsend within 15 minutes of sending removes the message and any attached file; after that, Delete replaces its content with “This message was deleted”. Both ask before they act

Conversation Management

Action	How
Mute	Suppress notifications for a conversation without leaving it
Pin	Keep a conversation at the top of the conversation list
Archive	Hide a conversation from the main list; accessible via the Archive tab
Search	Full-text search across all your messages via the search icon in the panel header

Privacy Settings

Each user controls their DM privacy from their account settings. Admins set the site-wide defaults at MediaVerse > Settings > Messages. A member’s own choice can be stricter than the site setting, never looser.

Option	Key	Values
Who can message me	mvs_dm_access	everyone, followers, mutual, nobody
Minimum account age	mvs_dm_min_age	Integer (days). Prevents newly registered accounts from sending DMs.
Show online status	mvs_show_online_status	everyone, followers, or nobody

When mvs_dm_access is set to nobody, the Message button is hidden on that user’s profile.

Content Moderation (1.9.0)

Every outgoing DM passes through the mvs_message_content_check filter before it is stored, the same seam other content types on the site already use to reject disallowed words. On its own, MediaVerse Free doesn’t ship a word-blocklist for messages - the filter is what lets a host (a full community stack like BuddyNext, or your own mu-plugin) block a message the moment it’s sent, so a member can’t route banned words through a DM that would otherwise be caught in a comment or activity post. A blocked send returns an error instead of saving the message.

add_filter( 'mvs_message_content_check', function( $result, $content, $sender_id, $conversation_id ) {
    if ( str_contains( strtolower( $content ), 'bannedword' ) ) {
        return new WP_Error( 'content_blocked', 'That word is not allowed.' );
    }
    return $result; // true lets the message through.
}, 10, 4 );

Transport

The chat panel polls the REST API to fetch new messages. There are three intervals (in milliseconds), chosen by context: an open conversation polls fastest, the conversation list slower, and a closed panel slowest. The defaults are active 3000, list 10000, and background 30000.

Filter the intervals with mvs_messaging_poll_intervals:

add_filter( 'mvs_messaging_poll_intervals', function( $intervals ) {
    $intervals['active'] = 2000; // Poll the open conversation every 2 seconds.
    return $intervals;
} );

REST API

Base URL: /wp-json/mvs/v1/

All endpoints require a logged-in user. Pass the X-WP-Nonce header with a nonce from wp_create_nonce( 'wp_rest' ).

POST /conversations

Start a new conversation.

Body:

{ "recipient_id": 42 }

Response: 201 Created with the new conversation object, or 200 OK with the existing conversation if one already exists between the two users.

---

GET /me/conversations

List all conversations for the current user. Excludes archived conversations unless ?include_archived=1 is passed.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
include_archived	int	0	Set to 1 to include archived conversations
per_page	int	20	Conversations per page
page	int	1	Page number

---

GET /conversations/{id}/messages

List messages in a conversation. The current user must be a participant.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
per_page	int	30	Messages per page
before	int	0	Return messages with ID lower than this value (for pagination). 0 means no cursor.

---

POST /conversations/{id}/messages

Send a message. The current user must be a participant and must satisfy the recipient’s mvs_dm_access setting.

Body (JSON or multipart/form-data for file attachments):

Field	Required	Description
content	No	Text content. Defaults to empty string.
message_type	No	Message type: text (default), media_share, image, video, audio, voice, file, system. Unknown values fall back to text.
media_id	No	MediaVerse media ID when message_type=media_share
attachment_id	No	WordPress attachment ID from a prior POST /messages/upload, used for image/video/audio/voice/file messages
parent_id	No	Message ID to reply to. Creates a threaded reply visible under the parent message.
metadata	No	Object of extra data (e.g. { "duration": 12 } for voice messages).

Response: 201 Created with the new message object.

---

GET /conversations/{id}/messages/search

Search message content within a single conversation (1.9.0). The current user must be a participant.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
q	string	(required)	Search term matched against message content
per_page	int	50	Matching messages per page

Response: Array of matching message objects, same shape as GET /conversations/{id}/messages.

---

POST /messages/upload

Upload a file to use as a DM attachment. Returns the WordPress attachment ID to pass as attachment_id in a subsequent POST /conversations/{id}/messages call.

Body: multipart/form-data with a file field.

Allowed types (2.2.0): media only - image/jpeg, image/png, image/gif, image/webp, audio/webm, audio/mp4, audio/mpeg, audio/ogg, video/mp4, video/webm. The real MIME is sniffed server-side (finfo), so renaming a file does not bypass the check; anything else returns 400 File type not allowed. Extend the list with the mvs_dm_allowed_file_types filter. (The file message type remains for messages sent before 2.2.0.)

Response: 200 OK

{ "id": 123, "source_url": "https://yoursite.com/...", "thumbnail": "https://yoursite.com/..." }

---

PATCH /conversations/{id}

Update conversation state for the current user.

Body:

Field	Type	Description
is_muted	bool	Set to true to mute, false to unmute
is_pinned	bool	Set to true to pin, false to unpin
is_archived	bool	Set to true to archive, false to restore

Response: 200 OK with the updated conversation object.

---

DELETE /conversations/{id}

Delete a conversation for the current user. The conversation remains visible to the other participant.

Response: 204 No Content

---

DELETE /messages/{id}

Soft-delete a message. Requires ownership of the message. The message record is kept but its content is replaced and is_deleted is set to 1.

---

DELETE /messages/{id}/unsend

Hard-delete a message. Only available within 15 minutes after sending. Requires ownership of the message. The message record is permanently removed.

Response: 204 No Content

---

GET /me/messages/unread-count

Return the total number of unread messages across all conversations for the current user. Used to update the chat panel badge.

Response:

{ "unread": 4 }

---

POST /messages/{id}/reactions

Add or change a reaction on a message.

{ "emoji": "❤️" }

To remove a reaction, call DELETE /messages/{id}/reactions.

---

Actions and Filters

mvs_message_sent

Fires after a message is successfully saved.

add_action( 'mvs_message_sent', function( $message_id, $conversation_id, $sender_id, $recipient_ids ) {
    // React to the new message.
}, 10, 4 );

mvs_message_types

Filter the list of allowed message types accepted by the send endpoint.

add_filter( 'mvs_message_types', function( $types ) {
    return $types; // Default: text, media_share, image, video, audio, voice, file, system.
} );

mvs_messaging_poll_intervals

Filter the client-side polling intervals (in milliseconds) delivered to the front end. See the Transport section above.

mvs_message_content_check

Filter fired before a message is stored. Return a WP_Error to block the send; return the passed-in true (or anything not a WP_Error) to let it through. See the Content Moderation section above.