Sharing

Share conversations and results with others using secure, encrypted links. You control who sees what, for how long, and whether a password is required.

Summary

• Use sharing when you want someone else to view a chat or app result without changing your original chat.
• Open the share panel from the chat header, choose your options, then copy the link or scan the QR code.
• You can add expiration, password protection, and community sharing depending on how broadly you want to share. When you are online, OpenMates creates a compact short link by default.

What It Does

Sharing lets you send a link to a chat or embed (a result like a web page summary, code snippet, or video transcript) so others can view it. The link contains an encrypted key that only works with that specific content – the server never sees it.

Sharing Options

Share Publicly

Anyone with the link can view the chat.

• The chat is read-only.
• If someone tries to reply, a personal copy of the chat is created in their account. The original stays unchanged.
• You can optionally enable Share with Community, which makes the chat eligible for discovery on the platform and social media. When community sharing is enabled, password protection and time limits are disabled automatically.

Password Protection

You can add a password (up to 10 characters) to any shared link for extra security.

• The password encrypts the access key inside the link itself.
• OpenMates never stores or receives the password. For compact short links, OpenMates may store that a link is password-protected so social previews can hide the chat title and summary.
• If the password is wrong, the content simply cannot be decrypted.

Link Expiration

Share links can have a time limit that you set when creating them (for example, 1 hour, 24 hours, or longer). If you do not set a limit, the share link does not expire by default.

• Expiration is checked against the server clock, so it cannot be bypassed by changing your device time.
• Once expired, the link stops working.

Creating a Share Link

Share links are generated on your device first. When you are online, OpenMates wraps that encrypted link in a compact /s/{token}#{key} short link. If the short-link service is unreachable, copying and QR codes fall back to the longer encrypted /share/...#key=... link.

1. Open the chat or embed you want to share.
2. Set an expiration time and optional password.
3. Copy the link or scan the QR code.

Controlling What Is Shared

• When you first share, all existing messages become visible to recipients.
• Messages you send after sharing are private by default. Recipients will not see them unless you click Update shared chat.
• No new link is needed after updating – the same link shows the new content.

Embed Sharing

Results from apps (web summaries, code, transcripts, and so on) can be shared independently of the chat they appeared in.

• Embed links work the same way as chat links: encrypted, with optional password and expiration.
• Online embed sharing uses the compact /s/{token}#{key} format. Offline fallback links use /share/embed/{embed-id}#key={encrypted-key}.

Social Media Previews

When you share a link on social media or messaging apps, a preview (title and summary) appears automatically. This preview is generated from separate, server-readable metadata – your actual chat content remains encrypted and private.

Managing Shared Chats

For the Chat Owner

• You can unshare a chat at any time, which revokes all access.
• You can delete the chat, which removes it everywhere.
• Disabling “Share with Community” removes the chat from discovery but keeps the link working.

Tips

• Online share links are compact enough to fit in a QR code. Offline fallback links are longer but still encrypted.
• Use password protection when sharing sensitive content, even with a time limit.

Related

• Chats – Chat management basics
• Hidden Chats – Password-protect chats on your device
• Demo Chats – Community-submitted example conversations