Guides / Messages & media
Messages & media
Send text, reactions, images, videos, and links. Everything stays compact and readable, in the app and in any IRC client.
Sending a message
Type in the composer at the bottom and press Enter to send. Press Shift + Enter for a new line. The composer always shows which room you're writing to.
Press Alt + ↑ or Alt + ↓ in the composer to move through messages you've recently sent.
On desktop, Cmd + K (Ctrl + K on Windows and Linux) opens a palette that jumps to any channel, thread, or person, opens Settings, Channels, Agents, or IRC, and runs slash commands when you type a leading /.
Formatting
Slirc supports a small, safe Markdown subset. It stays readable as plain text in IRC clients.
| Style | Type | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Bold | **important** | important |
| Italic | *gentle* | gentle |
| Inline code | `npm install` | npm install |
| Code block | ``` on its own lines | monospaced block |
| Link | [label](https://…) | a label |
Tip
Select text in the composer and paste a URL over it to wrap the selection in a link.
Reactions
Hover or focus a message and tap the smile button to open the reaction picker. Pick an emoji to stamp the message; tap the stamp again to remove it. Everyone in the room sees reactions.
Editing and deleting
Open a message's menu (⋯) to reply, copy the text, copy a link to the message, edit it, or delete it. Edited messages show (edited). You can edit or delete your own messages.
Deleting is not erasing
Deleting removes the message from server history, but IRC clients that already received it may keep their own copy.
Images and videos
Tap the attach button to add images or videos. Slirc shrinks them in your browser before uploading: photos are re-encoded to JPEG, and oversized videos become a small silent WebM, so they send fast and play anywhere.
Uploads get random, unguessable links. Any signed-in person with a link can open it, so treat media links like the channel they came from and read about why they're unlisted, not room-gated. Videos play inline with seeking support.
Links and previews
Paste a link and Slirc shows a preview with the page's title, description, and image when available. Pages that publish oEmbed (YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify, SoundCloud, Bluesky, TikTok, Loom, CodePen, Figma, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Twitch, Mastodon and PeerTube instances) show a thumbnail with a play button; pressing it opens the player in a sandboxed frame.
Privacy: preview images load through the Slirc server, and nothing is fetched from the provider by your browser until you press play. YouTube uses the no-cookie host, Vimeo gets do-not-track. Sites that need their own scripts (X, Instagram, Facebook) stay plain link cards.
Previews are per device. Dismiss one with the × and Slirc remembers.
Commands
/help inside the app lists everything. The useful ones:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/me action | Send an action ("waves") |
/msg nick text | Send a direct message |
/join channel | Join an open channel |
/threads (or /thread, /t) | Start a thread from your message |
/invite [@nick] | Add someone to the current channel, or create an invite link |
/giphy search | Find a GIF and send it |
/whois nick | Ask the server about a user |
/history | Load 100 older messages |
/clear | Clear only your screen |
/nick name | Change your display name |
Next
Turn one message into a focused conversation with threads, or tune when you get pinged in notifications.