Message Actions (Long-Press)
Press and hold a message to reply, react, copy, delete, save, or resend it.
Long-pressing any message in a conversation opens an actions popup. It shows a preview of the message at the top and only the actions that make sense for that message. Delete appears only on messages you sent, Save appears only on photos, videos, and PDFs, Copy appears only when there is text to copy, and Resend appears only while a message is still undelivered.
Overview
| Action | Appears when | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Reply To | Always | Attaches your next message to this one and shows a reply strip above the input bar. |
| React | Always | Opens the emoji picker — see Emoji Reactions. |
| Copy | The message has text | Copies the text to the clipboard and shows a "Copied" toast. |
| Delete | You sent the message | Removes it from the thread for everyone. |
| Save | The message is a photo, video, or PDF | Copies the file to your device and shows a "Saved" toast. |
| Resend | The message has not been delivered yet | Uploads and sends it again. |
The preview at the top
The popup shows what you long-pressed, so you can be sure you grabbed the right bubble:
| Message type | Preview shows |
|---|---|
| Text | The message text, with links and any highlighted references styled as they are in the thread. |
| Photo, video, PDF, voice note | The type of message, written out — for example Photo or Pdf. |
| Location | The place name together with its coordinates. |
Getting Here
- Open any conversation in the Messages module.
- Press and hold a message bubble.
- The actions popup appears over the conversation.
Long-press does nothing in a conversation that has been closed, removed, or disabled. Those threads show "This Chat Has Been Closed" or "Sending Messages is Disabled" in the input bar, and every message action is turned off.
Reply to a Message
- Long-press the message and tap Reply To.
- A reply strip appears above the message field. It names the sender — or reads You for your own message — and previews what they said. Media replies also show a small thumbnail: the photo itself, a frame from the video, a document icon for a PDF, or a map marker for a location.
- The keyboard opens. Type your response and send it as normal.
- To drop the reply, clear the strip before sending.
Copy Text
- Long-press a message that has text and tap Copy.
- The text goes to your clipboard and a brief "Copied" toast confirms it.
- Paste it anywhere — into another conversation, an incident note, or outside the app.
For a location message, Copy puts the coordinates on the clipboard rather than the place name, which is what you usually want when passing a position to someone else.
Delete a Message
- Long-press a message you sent and tap Delete.
- The message disappears from the thread immediately and the removal is sent to the server in the background.
Delete is only offered on your own messages, and it is not reversible. Messages sent by other people cannot be deleted from your copy of the conversation.
Save a File
- Long-press a photo, video, or PDF message and tap Save.
- A brief "Saved" toast confirms the copy.
| File type | Where it goes | Permission asked |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | Your device's photo library | Permission to add to your photos |
| Video | Your device's photo library | Permission to access your photos |
| Your device's files, where you can open it outside the app | None |
If you decline the photo library permission, saving a photo or video cannot complete. Allow it in your device settings and try Save again.
Resend an Undelivered Message
Every message you send is added to the thread straight away and then uploaded. Until that upload succeeds the message counts as undelivered, and Resend appears on its long-press menu.
- Reconnect if you are offline.
- Long-press the message and tap Resend.
- The message — including its attached photo, video, PDF, or voice note — is uploaded again.
Resend is the right tool after a brief drop in coverage. If the message still will not go through, check that you have a working connection before trying repeatedly.
How This Connects
- What decides the menu. The popup is assembled from the message itself: who sent it, what type it is, whether it has text, and whether it has been delivered. That is why the same long-press gives you a different set of actions on different bubbles.
- Where the files come from. Save works on the copy of the file already stored on your device by the app, which is why saving a photo you have already viewed works with no connection.
- Shared with other screens. Every action here runs inside Chat View: the reply strip appears on its input bar, React opens Emoji Reactions, and a saved reaction becomes the chip that opens Who Reacted. The same popup is used in a conversation opened from an incident's Comms tab.
- Delivery state and the Messages list. Deleting a message can change which message is the most recent in the thread, which in turn changes where the conversation sits on the activity-sorted Messages List.
- Chats and incidents. In a conversation attached to an incident, Reply To is the usual way to keep an answer tied to the tasking it belongs to, and Copy on a location message is the quickest way to pass a position into another module.
- Offline and reconnect. Reply, react, copy, delete, and save all work offline, because they act on data already on your device. Only the upload part is deferred: deletions and reactions are queued and sent when the connection returns, and undelivered messages are retried in the background as well as when you tap Resend.
Troubleshooting
| If this happens | What to do |
|---|---|
| Long-press does nothing | The conversation is closed, removed, or disabled, which turns all message actions off. |
| Delete is missing | You did not send that message. Only your own messages can be deleted. |
| Save is missing | The message is not a photo, video, or PDF. Text, voice notes, and locations cannot be saved. |
| Copy is missing | The message has no text — for example a bare photo with no caption. |
| Resend keeps reappearing | The upload is still failing. Confirm you have a real connection, then try Resend again. |
| No "Saved" toast after Save | Photo library permission was declined. Allow it in your device settings. |
| Nothing pastes after Copy | Check the "Copied" toast appeared. If it did not, the copy did not run — try again. |
| The reply strip will not go away | Clear the strip before sending, or send the message to use the reply. |
Related Pages
⬅️ Previous: Emoji Reactions | Next: Who Reacted ➡️