We've all been there — a group chat is humming along, someone drops a question or idea, and before you know it, a side conversation has taken over the entire thread. The main chat gets noisy, people who don't need to be involved are getting notified, and the original flow of the conversation is completely lost. Sound familiar? We heard you, and this release is our answer to that scenario!

We are thrilled to introduce Threads — a way to spin off focused, breakout conversations inside any group or DM, without cluttering the main chat. A thread is its own self-contained chat, complete with its own title, messages, and notification settings, but it lives right under its parent chat so context is never lost. No memberships to manage, no permissions to set — anyone in the parent chat can read any thread in that chat, and joining a thread is as easy as sending a message.

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Threads also work hand-in-hand with Replies, which you may already use for quick in-stream responses. The key difference: Replies are great for short, contextual back-and-forths. Threads are for those longer conversations that don't need to pull in everyone in the group. And if a reply chain starts to take on a life of its own, you can even convert it to a thread — more on that below!​

As always, after reviewing the feature release notes, please take a moment to let us know how this production release impacts you by answering this short (sub 3min) survey.

​Pronto Feature Release Survey
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For a growing library of documentation on the new Pronto features, visit here.​

Threads let you break out a focused conversation from any group or DM without disrupting the flow of the main chat. Think of it as giving a side conversation its own room — connected to the parent chat, but with its own space to breathe.

A few things that make Threads unique:

We designed Threads to fit naturally into however a conversation starts, so there are three distinct ways to kick one off.​

Have a topic you want to spin up from scratch? From the message composer, tap the + button and choose Thread. Give it a name, write your first message, and send. A system message will appear in the parent chat letting everyone know a new thread has been created, and it'll show up immediately in the thread browser.
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See a message in the chat that deserves its own conversation? Select it and choose Create Thread. The original message becomes the thread's source message (displayed at the top of the thread), and its text is used as the default thread name — though you can always edit it. Back in the parent chat, a preview card will appear under the source message, linking anyone to the thread with a single tap.

This one is my personal favorite. If a reply chain has grown beyond a quick back-and-forth, you can promote it to a full thread. Open the reply chain and tap the banner at the top — Convert this conversation to a thread — and optionally give it a title. All existing messages in the reply chain move into the new thread, and anyone who sent or was @mentioned in those replies is automatically joined. Just keep in mind that converting is a one-way operation, so once it's a thread, it stays a thread!

Threads are easy to find no matter how you prefer to navigate Pronto:

You can always explicitly Join or Leave a thread from the thread's menu. Joining means your read receipts will be visible and you'll receive notifications for that thread.​

A few actions will automatically add you to a thread:

And you can always leave a thread at any time, regardless of your role in the parent chat.

Threads inherit the notification preference from their parent chat, but you can always override it on a per-thread basis. Options include:

A couple of things worth noting: @everyone inside a thread only notifies thread members — not everyone in the parent chat. And adjusting notifications away from "Nothing" will automatically join you to that thread.

Group owners have four thread-related permissions available in Group Settings → Permissions:

​Regardless of membership or permissions, anyone in the parent chat can always read a thread and add reactions.

Threads require Pronto 7.0 or later. Users on older versions may see inconsistent behavior when receiving thread notifications, so please encourage everyone to update to the latest version before diving in.​

A few other things to be aware of: