Reactions and emoji — Private.Ki Help

There are two kinds of emoji in a chat: reactions, the small badge you attach to someone's message, and emoji in the text of your own messages. Both are encrypted end to end like everything else in the conversation.

React to a message

Six reactions are available: 👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 🙏

Open the reaction row. On the desktop, hover over a message for a moment and the row appears above it; a right-click opens the full menu with the same row at the top. On a phone, press and hold the message.
1Full screen
1One of six — one per messageWeb & desktop
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1Reaction rowiPhone
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1Reaction rowAndroid
Tap one of the six. It appears as a small badge at the corner of the bubble, on both your screen and theirs.
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1Your reaction on their message2Their reaction on your messageWeb & desktop
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1Reaction badge2Reaction badgeiPhone
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1Reaction badge2Reaction badgeAndroid

You can have one reaction per message. Tap a different emoji to replace it; tap the same one again to remove it. If the other person reacts with the same emoji as you, the badge shows a count.

Reactions work in one-to-one chats only. In a group the long-press or right-click menu has no reaction row — see Group chats. They are also unavailable on a message that has not finished sending, and in a chat with someone whose key you do not have yet.

Emoji in your messages

Click the smiley icon at the right of the Message field to open the emoji picker. It has categories along the top, a search box, and a Frequently used row. Pick one and it is inserted where your cursor is.

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1Emoji2Search3Frequently usedWeb & desktop

The emoji picker from the smiley icon: categories, search, frequently used. — 1Emoji2Search3Frequently usediPhone

Two shortcuts also work while typing: emoticons such as :) and shortcodes such as :thumbsup: are turned into the emoji when the message is sent.

Big emoji. A message that is nothing but emoji — up to three of them — is shown large, without a bubble, on both sides.

The smiley icon opens the emoji picker as a panel above the keyboard. Your phone's own emoji keyboard works too.

What our server sees

A reaction is not stored as "👍 on message X". Your device encrypts the emoji and a reference to the message, signs it, and stores one copy for you and one for the other person, each filed under an identifier only that person can compute. The server cannot pair the two, read the emoji, or see which message it belongs to.

Cannot see

Which emoji you chose, or which message you reacted to
Whether a message was reacted to at all — a reaction row looks like any small encrypted message

Can see

That a small encrypted item passed between the two accounts at that time

Common questions

Can I use any emoji as a reaction?

No — only the six. The picker in the composer is for message text.

The other person reacted but I do not see it

Their reaction arrives like a message and needs your app to be online to sync. It appears once it does. If you deleted the message on your side, its reactions have nowhere to land.

Why is there no reaction row on a message?

Either the chat is a group, the message is still sending (spinner in its footer), or the conversation has not yet exchanged keys — for example a chat where the other person has not yet written and you have not yet sent anything successfully. Try again once a message from each of you has gone through.

"Failed to react" appeared

The encrypted reaction could not be posted — usually a connection problem. Try again.