Discussions

Discussions let you create focused conversations within a team or channel in Rocket.Chat. They are useful for breaking down larger topics into smaller, organized threads. Discussions appear in the sidebar under Discussions and are marked with the icon.

Every discussion must belong to a parent team or channel.

Example: If you have a team called Engineering-Team and a channel named Website-Development-Channel, you could create a discussion called Website-Landing-Page to keep all conversations about the landing page in one place.

Discussion details

To access the details of a discussion:

1. Open the desired Discussion from the sidebar.

2. Click the Room Information icon from the menu bar to access some details of the discussion.

3. Click Edit to access and update all the following discussion details:

   1. Name: The discussion title, shown in the sidebar and used in search.

   2. Topic: A short label displayed next to the header.

   3. Announcement: A message shown at the top of the discussion for important reminders.

   4. Description: A longer explanation of the discussion’s purpose.

   5. Private: Restricts access to invited members only.

   6. Read-only: Allows only users with permission to post. Others can read messages but not reply.

   7. Archived : Closes the discussion to new messages. Archived discussions are hidden from search but remain available to admins through the Directory.

   8. Password to access: Protects the discussion with a password. Members must enter the password before joining.

Advanced settings

In the Advanced settings section, you can further control behavior and permissions:

• Hide system messages: Choose which automated system notifications (e.g., join/leave messages) are hidden.

• Automatically prune old messages: Set the discussion to remove older messages automatically.

• Override global retention policy: Apply custom retention rules for this discussion. Refer to Room Retention Policy to learn how to prune messages in a room.

Next steps

• To learn how to create discussions, visit Create a New Discussion.

• For more details about managing discussions, see Manage Discussions.