7 must-have features for your messaging app

This the primary feature of any messaging app.
Users usually use different ways to communicate their messages. Consider building all these features:

• Secret chats. Implement chats that disappear after a certain period of time to provide an extra level of privacy.
• Delivery status. It shows whether the chat participant has seen and received a message.
• Unsend message. Most modern messengers let users unsend messages within a certain time frame after the message is sent.
• Group chats. Implement group chat functionality, especially when building messengers for communities or teams. Group chat was a core feature of Healthfully, a medical platform we worked on that improves communication in hospitals. We created a UI/UX design and were responsible for web development.
• Moderation. Adding group chat functionality also requires adding moderation functionality. Enable admins to ban or remove users, delete messages, and make other users admins. Telegram also has a feature that allows admins to limit the number of messages from one user during a certain period of time.

Sometimes users don’t have time to type long messages. For added convenience, allow users to send video and audio messages. This feature, which first appeared in WeChat in 2015, quickly captured the hearts and minds of Chinese users and started spreading to other chatting software.

The more channels of communication you provide, the more convenient your app will be for users. Let users communicate via free voice and video calls. Group call functionality takes greater efforts to implement but provides the possibility to run video meetings.

Users want to instantly share photos, GIFs, videos, documents, and other content. Implement file exchange functionality that allows users to send files in various formats. You can integrate with Google Drive and Dropbox using their APIs to let users import files directly from these services.

Photos are the most popular type of file to exchange. It’s a good idea to let users highlight elements in photos or simply decorate them. Photo editing functionality can vary greatly, from cropping to adding Snapchat-like filters.

Public channels make messaging applications a powerful marketing tool and a medium that companies, bloggers, and professional communities can use to make announcements. Typically, only admins can create posts in public channels; subscribers are unable to create new posts but can like and comment on existing posts. We developed public channels called Communities in Healthfully. In these channels, doctors can post useful information for patients who, in turn, can like or comment on those posts.

There are two main reasons to integrate with social networks:

Quick registration. During registration, a user can choose to link their messenger profile with a social network profile. This saves time on typing information.

File sharing. Users can share files via social media accounts. In turn, some messengers provide custom buttons on the websites that allow users to share posts from the websites directly in the messenger.