Look after your group

Let people in

Any member can make an invite link. Select the snug wordmark at the top of the sidebar, or invite someone beside the faces near the bottom. Either one copies a link right away. Each link works for seven days, anyone who has it can join, and several can work at once.

Settings > Admin > Server lists every working link and who made it. revoke stops one at once and leaves current members alone. Banning or deactivating someone also stops their links. On a self-hosted server, the operator can keep links to admins with SNUG_INVITE_LINKS=admins. An older snug server keeps one admin-made link at a time, with replace invite link.

For people who arrive without an invite, set a shared password under Settings > Admin > Server > Shared password. It takes 4 to 128 characters. A new person types it once, when they take a name; an invite link skips it. Current members, bots, and sign-in codes keep working when you set or change it. Nobody can read the password back, so replace it if you forget it. With no password, anyone who has the address can join with an unused name.

Keep a seat free

On a server snug hosts, Settings > Admin > People shows how many of the 50 seats are taken. How seats count says what holds one. A self-hosted server has no seat limit and shows no count.

Once every seat is taken, nobody new can join. Where you make an invite or set the shared password, you'll see "All 50 seats are taken. Free one under People before inviting." To free a seat, deactivate an account nobody uses. Settings > Admin > People shows when each person was last active; sort it by last active to find who stopped coming. A ban keeps the seat, so the person can be unbanned.

Decide who can do what

Admins can do everything, including every setting here. To make someone an admin, open their menu (right-click them, or choose more options on their profile), choose roles and admin, then make admin. Only people can be admins, never bots. You can't remove admin from the last admin, and an admin has to lose admin before you can deactivate them.

If the last admin deletes their account, nobody takes over automatically. On a server snug hosts, its owner makes someone an admin in snug hosting: restore admin access. On a self-hosted server, the operator uses recover admin access.

Roles hand out narrower powers, such as deleting other people's messages, kicking people, or controlling shared playback. Open Settings > Admin > Roles, choose add role, and tick what it allows. Give a role to someone from their menu, under roles.

To make a channel private, right-click it, open who can enter, and tick the roles allowed in. Only people holding one of those roles see the channel. Admins see every channel, but not other people's direct messages. The #home channel stays open to everyone.

In the phone app, roles and channel access sit under Settings > Admin > People.

Read what people send you

Notes from send feedback and report to admins… arrive in Settings > Admin > Feedback. A dot on the settings button means something new has arrived since you last looked. A note stays until you choose clear, and copy takes the note with any app log attached to it.

A report starts with the member, channel, message, time, and a copy of the words, filled in by the reporter's app. They can edit that draft, so read the conversation itself before you act. Then reply to the person, delete what breaks your group's rules from the message's actions, and use the controls below when someone has to go. Clear the note once it's handled.

See how someone connects

While someone is connected, their profile shows you which app each connection uses, such as the desktop app on Windows, and the country it connects from. In a call, their connection info also lists each connection's address. The server keeps none of this after the connection closes. Only admins see it.

Mute, kick, ban, or deactivate

Open a person's menu and choose moderation. moderator mute turns off their voice in calls until a moderator lifts it. kick from server signs them out of every device; it works only while they're online, and they can come back straight away.

ban from server signs them out and keeps them out. Their account, name, roles, history, and seat stay, and unban under Settings > Admin > People lets them back. An admin can't be banned.

To retire an account for good, open its menu under Settings > Admin > People and choose deactivate account. That frees its name and seat, and its messages stay, shown as "Name (deactivated)". It can't be undone.

Set a text filter

Open Settings > Admin > Server > Text filter, add one word, phrase, or link fragment per line, and choose save text filter. It holds up to 100 terms of 80 characters each. Matching ignores case and repeated spaces, and a term also matches inside a longer word, so pick specific terms.

The snug server checks new and edited messages, poll choices, and plan descriptions before posting them, including posts from bots and webhooks. A refused post tells the writer to edit it or ask an admin. Changes apply to future posts; old content stays.

The filter reads text only. It doesn't scan images, attachments, link previews, voice, or video, and it can't recognize every kind of abuse. Before you invite people, add terms that fit your group, then send a test report from a second account and check that you can find it, reply, and remove the message.

Look back at what happened

Settings > Admin > Activity keeps the server's history of who joined, who came and went in voice, and every kick, ban, unban, deactivation, and moderator mute. Filter it by event or person, or choose jump to date. It keeps the newest 5,000 entries; change that with keep newest. Lowering it deletes older entries at once.

Help someone who lost every device

Open their menu, choose roles and admin, then make a sign-in code. They enter it on the join screen under I have an account and come back as themselves. The code works once, for 5 minutes. Link another device covers their side.

Free up space

Files fill a server long before messages do. Settings > Admin > Storage opens on Files: the space in use, files by channel, and every file, biggest first. Remove what nobody needs. A file from a direct message can be removed here but not opened. In the phone app, storage is under Settings > Admin > Server.

Export and clean up older messages

Save a channel's older messages to a file, then clear them out, up to 500 at a time:

1. Open Settings > Admin > Storage and choose Messages.
2. Choose a channel, and a date under Messages before. The date means midnight at its start, in your device's time zone.
3. Choose Preview messages. The oldest matching messages appear.
4. Choose Download export, and check that the file saved.
5. Tick I checked that my export was saved, then choose the delete button, which names how many messages it removes.

Deleting is for everyone and can't be undone, and the messages' reactions, polls, and plans go with them. Cleanup leaves out pinned messages, direct messages, and messages from people you've blocked, and it keeps the channel and its files. If anything in the batch changes before you delete, snug asks you to preview and export again. Preview again for the next batch.

The export holds message text, authors, dates, replies, reactions, polls, plans, and links to files, but not the files themselves. It's a copy to keep; nothing imports it back. For a copy of the whole server, use a backup: on a hosted server, or on your own.

The phone app shows how much room messages take but can't export or delete them. Use the desktop app or a browser, a phone's browser included.

Connect other services

Settings > Admin > Webhooks gives another service a private address that posts into one channel. Copy the address when it appears; it appears only once. Delete the webhook to stop it.

Pick the update hour

Settings > Admin > Server shows when the server's app was built and sets update window starts, the hour the server may restart for an update. Nightly backups run in that hour too.