Self-destructive messages

Product requests and ideas
1

As the title suggests, the request is for a feature present in most existing messengers. You have the option of defining how long a self-destructive message will last.

2 Likes
2

Hi @Alice! There has been some discussion about features like this in the issue trackers:

The developers seem open to working on this feature but right now there are higher priorities like the upcoming group chats.

In my opinion self destructing messages are not ok unless both parties consent. For this reason I think ephemeral conversations are ok where both people agree, but you should not be able to send a self-destructing message or message redactions to any random contact.

3 Likes
3

Great! The group feature is more important than self-destructive messages for now.

I agree. It is a very welcome privacy and security feature, because, as you know, it helps to delete the message history daily (thinking about the timer in 1 day).

1 Like
4

along with timed self-destruction, it would be nice to edit and delete your messages manually, and have the change reflected everywhere
for instance, in wire messenger, if it’s your own message, you get the option to either delete just for yourself or for everyone
if it’s your contact’s message, then you only have the option to delete for yourself
this seems to give you the most control over your own stuff

5

For this new feature I would be happy to contribute testing and documentation if needed

6

A news should come this month for the beta

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7

Hi all :slight_smile: For those interested in inspiration about automated self-destruct message. This is an interesting demonstration by Johan Haals at https://yopass.se This user interface is very easy to use.

Maybe some of yopass code could be recycled for Jami? The full open source code and documentation is at https://github.com/jhaals/yopass

Here are the options of yopass. After which an encrypted message is automatically deleted:

  • One Hour
  • One Day
  • One Week
  • Viewed once by the recipient
8

Would be cool to be able to set a timer on a text, image, video, etc. Once the other users open and view the message, the timer will start and once the timer expires, the message is deleted forever.

9

A little surprised this hasn’t been implemented, all the other messaging apps I tried had this feature. It was stated that there is higher priorities such as group chats however, my thinking is that this is a privacy issue and in a privacy focused app this should be a higher priority. I’m new so if I’m wrong please don’t go to hard on me. :face_in_clouds: P.S. Love Jami so far, thanks for all your hard work.

10

I think we first need a screen capture protection. Like screenshield anti screenshot (Link: https://screenshieldkit.com/ ) - but for all OS.

You can prevent that you can’t make a screenshot of your OWN Screen, but the other person still can make a screenshot of your conversation.

(There’s always a workaround, but at least it gets more complicated.)

And I think that’s the problem and this might make the creation of self-destructive messages nearly sensless.

However: Here’s an article: Synchronizing conversation history with Swarm

Some messages will still be ephemeral and exist for a few seconds, typically those that really only make sense for a limited time and in an instantaneous setting, namely: typing indicators, message read status, or location share. More ephemeral message types could be added in the future if need be.

1 Like