Highlights

Action Buttons and Links in Components

You can now use Action Buttons and Action Links inside message content in TalkJS Components. These let you execute custom code in your chat. As such, they’re perfect for quick-response actions, such as polls, approving requests, or marking items as done. When a user clicks a button or link, it triggers an onMessageAction event. 

Support for HEIC and HEIF files

Users can now upload HEIC (High-Efficiency Image Codec) and HEIF (High Efficiency Image File) images. These files now display correctly throughout TalkJS, including in the chat, email notifications, and when sent via the REST API. HEIC/HEIF images offer high-quality, efficient compression and are increasingly used on iOS devices and modern cameras. With this update, users can share HEIC and HEIF images just like any other supported file type.

Overview of other changes

Added

• Components (0.0.29): Added support for content suppression.
• JavaScript Data API (1.6.0): Added TalkSession.setToken(token: string) which reauthenticates the session with a new token.
• JavaScript Data API (1.6.0): Added TalkSession.onNeedToken: () => void, which gets called whenever a new auth token is needed. To use refreshable auth tokens, set a callback that fetches a new auth token and passes it to setToken.
• Classic JavaScript SDK: Added support for programmatically jumping between search results. HighlightControls now exposes the methods jumpUp and jumpDown to navigate to the previous or next matching message.

Changed

• JavaScript Data API (1.6.0): Initial token fetch is now delayed until you actually use the session to send a request, rather than happening as soon as you call getTalkSession.

Deprecated

• JavaScript Data API (1.6.0): Deprecated token in getTalkSession. Use TalkSession.setToken instead.
• JavaScript Data API (1.6.0): Deprecated tokenFetcher in getTalkSession. Use TalkSession.onNeedToken instead.

Fixed

• Components (0.0.29): Fixed an issue where, under certain conditions, editing a message could cause an error.
• Components (0.0.30): Fixed a content suppression bug that could cause the chatbox to crash.
• Classic JavaScript SDK: Fixed an issue where scrolling to a long message showed the bottom instead of the top of that message.
• Classic JavaScript SDK: Fixed an issue where content suppression wouldn’t correctly suppress link previews.

👋 Have questions or feedback? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch.

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This month’s update brings the all-new, fully customizable TalkJS chat UI components, plus several fixes, SDK improvements, and new resources for developers.

Highlights

Introducing TalkJS chat UI components, now 100% more customizable ✨

Add fully customizable chat to your app with the new TalkJS chat UI components, rebuilt from the ground up for maximum flexibility. These prebuilt components let you control every aspect of your chat’s design and behavior while keeping setup simple. They work with all major web frameworks, including React, Next.js, Angular, Vue, Svelte, and plain JavaScript, and can be styled or extended using props, events, and CSS. The guides show how to get a working chat running in minutes, then fine-tune it with custom themes, layouts, and interactions.

A note for existing users: If you’re already using TalkJS’ React or JavaScript SDKs, don’t worry, these are now called Classic SDKs. They’re fully supported and continue to work exactly as before. No changes needed in your current setup. 

Read more about chat UI components →

Other changes

Changed

• JavaScript Data API (1.5.5): Marked snapshot properties as readonly, to prevent modification of snapshots. 
• Classic JavaScript SDK (0.42.1): Marked snapshot properties as readonly, to prevent modification of snapshots. 

Deprecated

• Deprecated the @talkjs/components package. Use @talkjs/react-components or @talkjs/web-components instead. 
• Deprecated the @talkjs/theme-default package. Use @talkjs/react-components or @talkjs/web-components instead. 

Fixed

Components

  Version 0.0.27

• Fixed a bug where trying to insert mentions or emojis while using a custom theme would silently fail.
• Fixed a bug where selecting the action to edit a message would cause an error.

  Version 0.0.26

• Fixed a bug that would prevent users from sending messages longer than 1,000 characters.

  Version 0.0.25

• Fixed a bug where the UI jumped when a user clicked message actions.
• Fixed a bug that prevented programmatically selecting a conversation. 
• Fixed a bug that would make one’s scroll position jump when you add emojis from the emoji picker.
• Fixed an issue to ensure that when a user marks a conversation as unread, it’s only marked as read again when the user switches to it or remounts.

JavaScript Data API

• Version 1.5.9: Fixed a bug that would make the library crash under certain conditions.
• Version 1.5.8: Fixed a bug where the SDK wasn’t working correctly for React Native.
• Version 1.5.7: Fixed a bug that would cause a crash on React Native.
• Version 1.5.6: Fixed a bug for using the library for on-premise deployments. 

Classic JavaScript SDK

• Fixed an issue with content suppression on links that appear inside text nodes.
• Fixed an issue where users on iOS using Webview would have to double tap links in order to navigate to them.

Other

• Fixed a bug where importing a large volume of messages with the exact same timestamp using the REST API could result in errors.

New resources

GameBoost case study

Discover how GameBoost scaled real-time communication globally with TalkJS, boosting response times, user trust, and developer efficiency. 

Read the case study → 

TalkJS code sandbox

Edit TalkJS code examples and get updates instantly in a live chat preview.

Try out the code sandbox →

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

✨ Follow TalkJS on LinkedIn, Bluesky or 𝕏 to stay up to date.

👩🏾‍💻 Come join TalkJS! Check out the jobs page.

A smaller update this month, focused on developer quality-of-life updates and a few important fixes.

Added

• JavaScript SDK (0.42.0): Added the option to cancel sending a message by adding a cancel: boolean property to SendMessageOverrideParams.

Fixed

• JavaScript Data API (1.5.4): Fixed a bug that prevented the websocket from disconnecting when idle after unsubscribing.
• JavaScript Data API (1.5.3): Fixed a bug where subscribing to a conversation's messages after previously subscribing to that conversation, could cause an error related to sequence numbers being out-of-order.
• Increase message field color contrast and update message editor ARIA label for improved accessibility.

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

✨ Follow TalkJS on LinkedIn, Bluesky or 𝕏 to stay up to date.

👩🏾‍💻 Come join TalkJS! Check out the jobs page.

This month’s update brings real-time emoji reactions to the JavaScript Data API, introduces the new TalkJS Support Bot, and includes important fixes and SDK improvements across platforms.

Highlights

Emoji reactions with the JavaScript Data API

You can now access and manage real-time emoji reaction data for any message using the JavaScript Data API. TalkJS Core 1.5.0 introduces two new objects: ReactionRef, created via MessageRef.reaction, and ReactionSnapshot, available through MessageSnapshot.reactions. These allow you to subscribe to live updates on emoji reactions, see how many reactions a message has, and add or remove reactions programmatically.

This update supports both Unicode and custom emoji, with a limit of 50 distinct emojis per message.

For implementation details, check out the documentation for:

• MessageRef.reaction
• MessageSnapshot.reactions
• ReactionSnapshot
• ReactionRef

24/7 TalkJS Support Bot

Building at 2:13 a.m.? We’ve got you covered. You can now get TalkJS support 24/7 with the new TalkJS Support Bot. Whether you’re integrating TalkJS into your app or fine-tuning your chat experience, the Support Bot can instantly help with product questions, troubleshooting, and setup guidance, even outside our regular office hours (CET).

Of course, our expert human support team is still here when you need them. If you’d like to talk to a person, just hit Talk to a human and a support engineer will pick things up from there.

Other changes

Added

• Added an endpoint to add or remove emoji reactions with the REST API.

Changed

• JavaScript SDK (0.41.1): Session.user, Session.conversation, ConversationRef.message, ConversationRef.participant, and MessageRef.reaction now all perform type validation on the argument and will throw an error if you use an invalid type or an empty string.
• JavaScript Data API (1.5.1): When passing markup text to ConversationRef.send, it now ignores formatted links, action buttons, action links. Previously it parsed those nodes and tried to send them, which caused an error because users don't have permission to send those nodes.
• JavaScript Data API (1.5.0): Session.user, Session.conversation, ConversationRef.message, ConversationRef.participant, and MessageRef.reaction now all perform type validation on the argument and will throw an error if you use an invalid type or an empty string.
• JavaScript Data API (1.4.2): Changed GenericFileBlock from subtype?: undefined to subtype?: never so that type narrowing works consistently when you check subtype === "".
• Flutter SDK (0.16.0) – Breaking change: Updated Firebase dependencies. This upgrades the Firebase iOS SDK version to 12.0.0 and the Firebase Android SDK version to 34.0.0.  As a result the minSdkVersion on Android is API Level 23 (Android 6.0) and the minimum iOS version supported is iOS 15. See the Firebase Android and iOS release notes for more information.

Fixed

• JavaScript SDK (0.41.1): Fixed a bug where MessageRef.get() would always set MessageSnapshot.referencedMessage to null.
• JavaScript Data API (1.5.0): Fixed a bug where MessageRef.get() would always set MessageSnapshot.referencedMessage to null.
• Flutter SDK: Fixed a bug where, on iOS, switching focus from one input field to another would cause the webview to shift downwards. Upgrade dependencies (flutter pub upgrade) for the update to take effect.
• Fixed an issue where users on iOS using Safari would have to double tap a link for that link to open.
• Fixed a bug where exiting a fullscreen video would result in the chat jumping up or down when using the Chrome browser.
• Fixed an issue where mentions wouldn’t be preserved correctly in translated messages.

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Reply to this message, or start a chat.

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👩🏾‍💻 Come join TalkJS! Check out the jobs page.

Subscribe to a user’s online status

You can now get and subscribe to real-time data on a user’s online status. TalkJS Core (1.4.0) now has  UserRef.subscribeOnline, which subscribes to a user's online status. Real-time user online status data allows you to build anything from custom chat headers to online members’ lists. 

Explore online status data →

Overview of other changes

Added

• TalkJS Core (1.3.0): Added TalkSession.subscribeConversations, which returns a windowed subscription to your most recent active conversations.

Changed

• JavaScript SDK (0.40.1) and TalkJS Core (1.4.2): Changed GenericFileBlock from subtype?: undefined to subtype?: never so that type narrowing works consistently when you check for subtype.
• React Native SDK (0.15.0): A Session component now creates a User if a user doesn’t yet exist. This means that you no longer need to mount a ConversationList or Chatbox in order for the user to be created in the backend, but can do this with only the Session component.
• React Native SDK (0.15.0): Changed that every call to getConversationBuilder() returns a new object, even if the conversation ID already exists.

Fixed

• Fixed an issue where voice messages recorded outside of the chat UI (for example, sent via the REST API) weren’t displaying correctly.
• Fixed a bug in link suppressions. You can now selectively suppress certain links, instead of having to choose between suppressing either all or no links.
• TalkJS Core (1.4.1): Fixed an error that occurred when subscribing to a single conversation while already subscribed to all conversations, or vice versa.
• React Native SDK (0.15.0): Fixed an issue where onNotificationPressed didn’t work correctly on iOS when using Firebase for push notifications.
• React Native SDK (0.15.0): Fixed a bug in iOS where sometimes the device token didn’t get registered.

Case study 

Read the case study →

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

✨ Follow TalkJS on LinkedIn, Bluesky or 𝕏 to stay up to date.

👩🏾‍💻 Come join TalkJS! Check out the jobs page.

Highlights

 Build your own custom inbox

You can now build your own custom inbox or message center with TalkJS. The new TalkSession.subscribeConversations method for the JavaScript Data API allows you to get real-time updates about any conversations in your app.

Read more about subscribing to conversations.

Always know who’s typing

You can now use the JavaScript Data API to subscribe to typing indicators. 

Typing indicators are time-based. That means that if a user hasn’t typed anything for 10 seconds, they automatically count as having stopped typing. This ensures that typing indicators only show up when a user is actually typing, not when they accidentally pressed a key and left the tab open. 

Email notifications in a thread

Email notifications about new messages are now threaded by conversation in most email clients. This way, your users can more easily stay on top of notification messages with a clean, organized inbox.

Overview of other changes

Added

TalkJS Core

• TalkJS Core (1.2.0): Added ConversationRef.subscribeParticipants, which returns a windowed subscription to the participants in the conversation. This allows you to build custom participants lists, or create chat UIs that react to participant changes.
• TalkJS Core (1.2.0): Added ParticipantSubscription and ParticipantActiveState.
• TalkJS Core (1.1.1): Added ConversationSnapshot.everyoneReadUntil, which is the minimum of all the participants’ readUntil values. Any messages sent on or before the readUntil timestamp have been read by all participants in the conversation, which displays that double-tick read status indicator.

JavaScript SDK

• JavaScript SDK (0.38.0): Added ConversationRef.subscribeTyping.
• JavaScript SDK (0.38.0): Added TypingSnapshot.
• JavaScript SDK (0.37.0): Added readUntil field to ConversationSnapshot.

React Native SDK

• React Native SDK (0.14.0): Add hideKeyboardAccessoryView prop to Chatbox and ConversationList. When set to true it removes the accessory view (^ ˅ and Done) from the top of the iOS keyboard. The default value is false.

Changed

• TalkJS Core (1.2.0): Improved startup time by sending queued requests faster when you first open the connection.
• ⚠️ React Native SDK (0.14.0): To support React Native 0.79, this version drops support for CommonJS source files. The package now only ships with ESM source files. (breaking change)

Fixed

• React Native SDK (0.13.2): Fix setPushRegistration and unsetPushRegistration methods not working.
• Fixed an issue where, under certain conditions, the emoji picker didn’t display selected skin tones correctly.

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

✨ Follow TalkJS on LinkedIn, Bluesky or 𝕏 to stay up to date.

👩🏾‍💻 Come join TalkJS! Check out the jobs page.

Use a custom sender address for notifications

You can now use a custom sender address for email notifications. 

Previously, email notifications would be sent from a randomly generated address, such as jbvxkmldkrihi.mjh4b43vrl4m3tfhh455l2vwcr@r.talkjs.com. If you recently signed up, then by default all email notifications are sent by the much friendlier address notifications@r.talkjs.com. 

Are you using a custom email domain? Then you can also configure the local part of the sender address (the part before the @-symbol) directly from the details page of your email domain to change the settings.

Would you also like to use a custom email address for notifications? Get in touch to enable a custom email address for notifications for your project.

Overview of other changes

Added

• TalkJS Core (1.0.0): Initial release. The @talkjs/core package is stable and you can confidently use it to read, update, and subscribe to all your chat messaging data. Backward-compatibility guaranteed.
• TalkJS Core (1.0.1): Exported types for GenericFileMetadata, AudioFileMetadata, ImageFileMetadata, VideoFileMetadata, and VoiceRecordingFileMetadata. 
• JavaScript SDK (0.37.0): Added a new messages marker (readUntil), to show users where they left off in a conversation.
• JavaScript SDK (0.36.0): Added support for a new way of creating a session, using userId: string instead of the me: Talk.User parameter.
• Added support for localizing the chat UI into Icelandic (is-IS). Is your preferred language still missing? Get in touch to get it added.

Changed

• JavaScript SDK (0.36.0): Updated the email and phone fields when creating or editing a user. These fields now accept a string in addition to string[]. If you pass a single string, it gets converted to a single-element array.
• Flutter SDK (0.15.1): Upgraded talkjs_flutter_inappwebview dependency. 

Fixed

• React Native SDK (0.13.1): Fixed an issue where, on iOS, opening the keyboard would intermittently add extra padding.
• Fixed an issue where emojis used in messages would be rendered differently from emojis used in the emoji reactions.

Security

• Fixed an issue where, using the JavaScript Data API, under certain conditions, users could perform calls that should have been restricted to app administrators. 

Feature spotlight: AI chatbot 

Add an AI chatbot to your chat to boost engagement, conversion and retention. 

You can add any AI system to your TalkJS chat. To get started, you can use one of the following tutorials:

• Create a custom AI chatbot with Claude → 
• Create a custom AI chatbot with Gemini →
• Create a custom AI chatbot with the OpenAI API →

Want to try it out right now? Check out the AI chatbot demo.

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

✨ Follow TalkJS on LinkedIn, Bluesky or 𝕏 to stay up to date.

👩🏾‍💻 Come join TalkJS! Check out the jobs page.

Highlights

Chat UI components ✨ preview  ✨

TalkJS chat UI components (‘Components v2’) are now in preview and safe to use in production. 

Chat UI components give you ultimate flexibility to control the appearance and behavior of your chat. You can use the components with a ready-to-go pre-built theme, or customize your theme to get the exact look and feel you want.

Currently components are available for a chatbox UI with a range of basic features, which is continuously expanding. 

To work with chat UI components, you’ll need to combine the following two packages:

• @talkjs/components — a library that provides both React components and web components that you can use with any frontend framework, such as Angular, Vue, or Svelte.
• @talkjs/theme-default — a package with the default theme for @talkjs/components which lets you display a chat with any frontend framework. The default theme is fully open source, and you can fork and customize it to fit your own brand. See the default theme Github repository.

Use one of the dedicated getting started guides for chat UI components:

• JavaScript getting started guide →
• React getting started guide →
• Next.js getting started guide →
• Angular getting started guide →
• Vue getting started guide →
• Svelte getting started guide →

Real-time messaging data

You can now read, update, and subscribe to all your chat messaging data—no chat UI needed. This means that you can bring your own fully custom-built chat UI, and let TalkJS take care of the rest.

To work with real-time chat data, you have the following two options:

• Realtime API, part of the JavaScript SDK
• @talkjs/core, a standalone package now available on NPM

Want to get started directly? Here are some guides: 

• 1:1 chat getting started guide →
• Group chat getting started guide →

In a hurry? Copy a full working code example.

Overview of other changes

Added

• JavaScript SDK (0.35.0): Added ConversationRef.subscribe to be able to subscribe to a conversation with the Realtime API. 
• React Native SDK (0.13.0): The keyboardVerticalOffset prop is now also used in Android. This is part of the fix to ensure proper keyboard behaviour on apps targeting Android 15 and above. The default value on Android is 55 + StatusBar.currentHeight.

Changed

• React Native SDK (0.13.0): Updated dependencies.

Deprecated

• JavaScript SDK (0.35.0): Removed ConversationSnapshot.lastMessageAt. Use ConversationSnapshot.lastMessage.createdAt instead.

Fixed

• React Native SDK (0.13.0): Fixed keyboard issues on Android 15 that arose due to Android's enforcement of edge-to-edge.
• React Native SDK (0.13.0): Fixed internal event subscriptions not being cleaned up properly on re-renders.

Resources

Case study: FrostyWave is empowering young women with TalkJS messaging

Find out how FrostyWave is empowering young women to grow into their best selves with the TalkJS chat API.

Read FrostyWave's story.

Trying out TalkJS demos? Make it collaborative!

You can now use a one-click invite to try out TalkJS demos with colleagues in a shared conversation. Check out the latest demos:

• Job board →
• Virtual events →
• Team collaboration →
• Marketplace →

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

✨ Follow TalkJS on LinkedIn, Bluesky or 𝕏 to stay up to date.

👩🏾‍💻 Come join TalkJS! Check out the jobs page.

Highlight

Manage themes with the REST API

You can now manage your chat UI themes using the TalkJS REST API. This includes the options to create, update, delete or export a theme. You can directly edit themes for your test environment. Once you’re happy with the updates, copy the changes to your live environment, and you’re all set.

Managing your themes through the REST API makes it easier to work with themes across multiple projects, or keep themes in your code base and update them when deploying.

Overview of other changes

Added

• Added an endpoint to the REST API that allows you to get a user's notification reply-to email address for a conversation. Any emails sent to that email address appear in the conversation as being sent by the user.
• JavaScript SDK (0.34.0): Added SendMessageParams that can be passed to ConversationRef.send to send a message by specifying its content directly. This allows you to send text messages with manually-specified formatting, in addition to file attachments and locations.
• JavaScript SDK (0.34.0): Added EditMessageParams that can be passed to MessageRef.edit to edit a message by specifying its content directly. This allows you to edit text messages with manually-specified formatting, in addition to file attachments and locations.
• JavaScript SDK (0.34.0): Added Session.uploadFile and file-subtype-specific variants. This returns a FileToken that you can use in SendMessageParams or EditMessageParams.
• React Native SDK (0.12.0): Added the customEmojis prop to Chatbox and ConversationList. This prop adds a set of custom emoji images to the emoji picker, the emoji autocompleter, and emoji reactions. It allows users to send and receive custom emojis.
• React Native SDK (0.12.0): Added keyboardVerticalOffset prop to Chatbox. This prop is basically identical to the one passed to KeyboardAvoidingView. The default value is 90. Note that the keyboardVerticalOffset prop is only used in iOS to fix an iOS bug. On Android, the KeyboardAvoidingView component isn’t available.

Changed

• React Native SDK (0.12.1): Changed the default value for the keyboardVerticalOffset to 95.

Fixed

• Fixed an issue where user IDs weren’t sent correctly, which caused user mentions to break.
• Fixed an issue where user mentions would break when the user ID contained a pipe (|) character.
• React Native SDK (0.12.1): Fixed a bug in iOS when New Architecture is enabled, where the whole UI would be scrollable when the keyboard is open.
• React Native SDK (0.12.0): Fixed a bug in iOS, where opening the keyboard would cause the ChatHeader or the top messages to get hidden. 
• React Native SDK (0.12.0): Fixed the TypeError: _messageField.getTextResolver is not a function (it is undefined), js engine: hermes. error.
• React Native SDK (0.12.0): Fixed ref methods not working when called after a delay.

New tutorial

Send event invitations and other custom message types

Out of the box, TalkJS lets you send text, attachments and even voice clips, but what if you business has more specialized types of content to send? In this tutorial, TalkJS developer Frederik Creemers shows you a pattern to create a whole range of custom message types for your chat—from event invitations to payment requests, auction bids, and contact cards.    

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

✨ Follow TalkJS on 𝕏 and LinkedIn to stay up to date.

👩🏾‍💻 Come work at TalkJS! Check out our jobs page.

Highlight

Push notifications with Firebase Cloud Messaging

Want to keep your users engaged even when they're away from your chat? Learn how to set up web push notifications with Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) in TalkJS. Lucy Keer offers a step-by-step guide for adding push notifications for your website or app. 

Read more

Overview of changes

Added

• Added the option to set a referencedMessageId when importing messages with the REST API.
• Added a hook that triggers an event when a message is translated in real-time. The event includes the message ID, original message text (text), detected language, and the translated message text (translatedText). This way, you can store both the original and translated versions of the message.

Fixed

• Fixed an issue where, in the Realtime API, publishes would not be received correctly if the conversation ID of the conversation you’re subscribed to contained special characters.
• Fixed a bug where notifications didn’t pick up correctly on edits to a message text.

New resources

Real-time message translation for chat apps

Real-time chat translation reduces language barriers and allows you to offer global support. Follow this guide by Chris Meyns to set up real-time message translation for your website or app. 

Check out real-time translation 

Code samples

Want to add custom features to your chat? Refresh your chat UI? Use code samples! Whether you're building with regular JavaScript, React, Angular, Flutter, or other popular frameworks, you’ll find a wide range of ready-to-use examples. From integrating AI chatbots to adding custom features like GIF pickers or polls, we've got you covered.

Explore code samples

👋 Thoughts? Questions? Get in touch.

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👩🏾‍💻We’re hiring! Check out our jobs page.