Every chat app has the same four lights: online, away, busy, invisible. They answer one question, is this person at their computer?, and they answer it badly, because what your friends actually want to know is something else: can I ping you right now, or are you in the middle of something?

“Busy” was never a real answer to that. Set yourself busy and everything still buzzes like before; it’s a red dot with no opinions. So we built the thing the status light was pretending to be. It shipped with today’s update, and it’s called Moods.

A second axis

Your status stays what it always was: the availability light. A mood sits on top of it and says what you’re up for. There are three, and they do progressively more.

Happy does nothing at all, deliberately. It’s purely expressive, a little badge next to your name that tells your friends you’re in a good place. Not every signal has to be a filter.

Focused is for when you’re working, studying, or otherwise heads-down but not unreachable. DMs and calls from your close friends ring through the way they always do. Everyone else’s messages still arrive, just quietly: no toast, no sound, no lock-screen push. Busy server channels calm down to mentions only. The unread markers still appear, so nothing sneaks past you; it just stops shouting.

Deeply Focused is the real do-not-disturb. Nothing notifies: not DMs, not calls, not mentions, not even close friends. The sidebar’s red dots go dark too, because a “do not disturb” that keeps waving a red flag at you is not doing its one job.

The part we care most about: nothing is lost. Every message still delivers and every unread still counts, silently, in the background. The moment you relax your mood, the red dots come back exactly where they would have been, and you get one quiet summary of what accumulated while you were gone. It’s a curtain, not a shredder.

Close friends, doing what they were built for

A few weeks ago we added close friends, a private, one-way marking that only you can see. Moods are why. “Suppress everyone except the people who matter” only works if the app knows who matters, and that’s not something an algorithm should guess. You mark them; nobody, including them, is told.

Focused mode is that list at work: your close friends reach you like nothing changed, and everyone else waits until you surface.

Make it yours

The three moods come with sensible names, but you can rename whichever one is active. “Studying”, “Deep work”, “Raid night”, whatever fits. Your friends see the label next to the badge on your friend list. A mood with your own name on it says a lot more than a generic icon.

What it doesn’t do

  • It shapes notifications, not delivery. Nobody gets blocked, bounced, or told you’re filtering. Messages land in the conversation like always; they’re just not allowed to interrupt you.
  • Your explicit mutes stay sacred. A channel you’ve muted stays muted no matter what mood you’re in. Moods only ever make things quieter, never louder.
  • Your mood is visible. Friends can see it. That’s the point; it’s a social signal. If you’d rather disappear entirely, invisible mode still exists, and the two are independent: you can be invisible and Deeply Focused.

What’s next: your own moods

Three predefined moods are the MVP, not the destination. We’re already working on custom moods: define your own, give each one its own icon and its own notification rules, and decide per mood exactly which events get through (all friends, close friends only, specific servers, mentions only, nothing). The design sketches even have a little “+” button waiting in the mood picker. If the current moods are presets, custom moods are the equalizer.

No date promised (you know how we are about shipping things before announcing dates), but it’s actively being built, not parked on a wishlist.

Where to get it

Moods ship with version 1.0.0+58, rolling out now. The Mac app updates itself via Sparkle, and the same build follows on iOS via TestFlight and on Android shortly after. Set a mood from your avatar menu, mark the two or three people who should always reach you, and enjoy the quiet.

Thanks as always to the beta testers who pushed for this one. The feature exists because several of you independently said some version of “I love this app but it will not stop making noise.” Fair. Fixed.