Channel privacy settings
Channels organize conversations based on who needs to see them. For example, it
is common to have a channel for each team in an organization. Because Zulip
further organizes messages into conversations labeled with
topics, there is generally no need to create
dedicated channels for specific projects.
Zulip supports a few types of channels:
-
Public ():
Members can join and view the complete message history.
Public channels are visible to guest users
only if they are subscribed (exactly like private channels with
shared history).
-
Private ():
New subscribers must be added by an existing subscriber. Only subscribers
and organization administrators can see the channel's name and description,
and only subscribers can view topics and messages with the channel:
- In private channels with shared history, new subscribers can
access the channel's full message history.
- In private channels with protected history, new subscribers
can only see messages sent after they join.
-
Web-public (): Members can join (guests must be invited by a
subscriber). Anyone on the Internet can view complete message history without
creating an account.
Privacy model for private channels
At a high level:
-
Organization owners and administrators can see and modify most
aspects of a private channel, including the membership and estimated
traffic. Owners and administrators generally cannot see private
channel messages or do things that would give them access to private
channel messages, like adding new subscribers or changing the channel
privacy settings.
-
Organization members and moderators
cannot easily see which private channels exist, or interact with them
in any way until they are added. Given a channel name, they can
figure out whether a channel with that name exists, but cannot see
any other details about the channel.
-
From the perspective of a guest, all channels are private channels,
and they additionally can't add other members to the channels they
are subscribed to.
There are two situations in which an organization owner or
administrator can access private channel messages:
-
Via some types of data export.
-
Owners and administrators can change the ownership of a bot. If a
bot is subscribed to a private channel, then an administrator can get
access to that channel by taking control of the bot, though the
access will be limited to what the bot can do. (e.g., incoming
webhook bots cannot read messages.)
Detailed permissions
Public channels
|
Owners and admins |
Moderators |
Members |
Guests |
View channel name |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
◾ |
Join |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Unsubscribe |
◾ |
◾ |
◾ |
◾ |
Add others |
✔ |
✶ |
✶ |
|
Remove others |
✔ |
✶ |
✶ |
✶ |
See subscriber list |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
◾ |
See full history |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
◾ |
See estimated traffic |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
◾ |
Post |
✔ |
✶ |
✶ |
✶ |
Change the privacy |
✔ |
|
|
|
Rename |
✔ |
|
|
|
Edit the description |
✔ |
|
|
|
Delete |
✔ |
|
|
|
✔Always
◾If subscribed to the channel
✶
Configurable. See Channel posting policy,
Configure who can add users, and
Configure who can remove users
for details.
Private channels
|
Owners and admins |
Moderators |
Members |
Guests |
View channel name |
✔ |
◾ |
◾ |
◾ |
Join |
|
|
|
|
Unsubscribe |
◾ |
◾ |
◾ |
◾ |
Add others |
◾ |
✶ |
✶ |
|
Remove others |
✔ |
✶ |
✶ |
✶ |
See subscriber list |
✔ |
◾ |
◾ |
◾ |
See full history |
✶ |
✶ |
✶ |
✶ |
See estimated traffic |
✔ |
◾ |
◾ |
◾ |
Post |
◾ |
✶ |
✶ |
✶ |
Change the privacy |
◾ |
|
|
|
Rename |
✔ |
|
|
|
Edit the description |
✔ |
|
|
|
Delete |
✔ |
|
|
|
✔Always
◾If subscribed to the channel
✶
Configurable, but at minimum must be subscribed to the channel.
See Channel posting policy,
Configure who can add users, and
Configure who can remove users
for details.
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