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Restrict message editing and deletion

This feature is only available to organization owners and administrators.

Zulip lets you separately configure permissions for editing and deleting messages, and you can set time limits for both actions. Regardless of the configuration you select, message content can only ever be modified by the original author.

Note that if a user can edit a message, they can also “delete” it by removing all the message content. This is different from proper message deletion in two ways: the original content will still show up in message edit history, and will be included in data exports. Deletion permanently (and irretrievably) removes the message from Zulip.

Configure message editing permissions

Users can only edit their own messages.

  • Instructions for all platforms

  1. Go to Organization permissions.

  2. Under Message editing:

    • Toggle Allow message editing.
    • Configure Time limit for editing messages.

  3. Click Save changes.

Configure message deletion permissions

These permissions can be granted to any combination of roles, groups, and individual users.

  • Instructions for all platforms

  1. Go to Organization permissions.

  2. Under Message deletion:

    • Configure Who can delete any message.
    • Configure Who can delete their own messages.
    • Configure Time limit for deleting messages. This time limit does not apply to users who can delete any message.

  3. Click Save changes.

A user can delete messages sent by bots that they own just like messages they sent themself.

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