How messaging works

Everything in Messages is one of five things, and the kind decides what you're allowed to do with it.

The first three are channels. Nobody makes them by hand — the app keeps their membership in step with your team, your league season or your division, so people arrive and leave as the roster changes. The last two are yours: someone chose who was in them.

You can only ever start the last two kinds. Tap the + at the top of Messages and the New message screen walks you through it: pick Direct or Group, choose the team, then choose the people.

A group can have a name, but it doesn't need one — leave it blank and it shows as Group message. Only people on the team you picked can be added to it.

Only the person who created a group can add to it, and only to a group — a channel's membership is managed for you, so there's nothing to add.

When you add someone the app asks one question worth thinking about: Full history or Only new messages. Full history opens everything said before they arrived. Only new messages starts them from today, and the earlier conversation stays private to the people who were there.

Press and hold a message. Six reactions appear — thumbs up, thumbs down, heart, smile, frown and laugh — and tapping one adds it. Tap the same one again to take it back. It's the quickest way to answer a coach who needs to know you've read something without adding another message to the pile.

The same menu is where you'll find Report message and Block, and a Mark unread from here for when you want to come back to something later.

A message that's been reacted to carries a small chip underneath with the emoji and a count. Tap the chip to open Reactions, which lists every person by name. The tabs across the top split them up when a message has collected more than one kind — All first, then one tab per emoji.

Three different things that readers reach for interchangeably, and only one of them is available everywhere.

To mute, open the conversation, tap the i in the top right and tap Mute. The button reads Muted once it's on, and tapping it again turns notifications back on. Leaving and deleting start from the Messages list instead — swipe a conversation on your phone, or use the small icons on the row if you're on a computer.

This is the one that gets asked most, and the answer is that leaving wouldn't stick.

A channel's membership is generated from the roster. Leave your team's channel and the next time membership syncs — someone joins, someone's role changes — you'd be put straight back in, because you are still on the team. Rather than let you leave and quietly undo it, the app doesn't offer it.

Muting is the setting that survives, so it's the one to use. You stay in the channel, messages keep arriving, and your phone stays quiet. You can still open it whenever you want to catch up.

Nobody can delete a team or league channel either. It has no creator to delete it — the app made it.

These do different jobs. Block is personal and immediate: hold one of their messages, tap Block, and you stop seeing anything from them while they lose the ability to start a direct chat with you. Nobody is told. Undo it under Blocked Users in Settings.

Report message sends it to be reviewed by someone else. You pick a reason — harassment or bullying, hate speech, sexual or explicit content, violence or threats, spam or scam, or something else — and the report goes to your league's admins. A message reported by three different people is hidden straight away while it waits to be looked at.

Reporting doesn't block the person, and blocking doesn't report them. If someone is both upsetting you and breaking the rules, do both.