System messages channel
Designate a text channel to receive automatic notifications about community events.
What is the system messages channel?
The system messages channel is a text channel that automatically receives notifications when important events happen in your community. These system messages help members stay informed about community activity without requiring manual announcements.
How it works
You can enable or disable this feature and change the designated channel at any time in community settings. After changing channels, new system messages go to the new channel. Messages already sent to the previous channel remain there.
If you disable system messages, automatic notifications are not sent anywhere. Events still happen normally—members can still join, messages can still be pinned—but no automatic messages announce these events.
Enabling the system messages channel only affects future events. System messages are only created when events occur while the feature is enabled. You won't see messages for events that happened before you enabled the feature or while it was disabled.
What messages appear?
The system messages channel receives automatic notifications for:
| Event | Example message |
|---|---|
| Member joined | "Alex joined the community!" |
| Member kicked | "Jordan kicked Sam" |
| Member banned | "Jordan banned Sam" |
| Message pinned | "Jordan pinned a message" |
| Message unpinned | "Jordan unpinned a message" |
| Channel name changed | "Jordan set the channel name to announcements" |
| Channel description changed | "Jordan set the channel description to Important updates" |
| Community name changed | "Jordan set the community name to Gaming Hub" |
| Access rule added | "Jordan added @Moderators" |
| Access rule removed | "Jordan removed @Moderators" |
System messages appear inline with regular messages and are visually distinct from user-sent messages.
Best practices
Consider these recommendations when setting up your system messages channel:
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Think about visibility. System messages follow the same permissions as regular messages in that channel. If you want all members to see system messages, designate a channel that everyone can access. If system messages contain sensitive information, consider limiting access to leaders or moderators.
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Use a dedicated channel. Don't mix system messages with regular conversation. Create a separate channel specifically for system messages so they don't get lost in chat.
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Make it read-only. Restrict posting permissions so only system messages appear. This keeps the channel clean and makes it easy to scan for important events.
Enable or disable system messages
You can enable or disable system messages at any time. When disabled, no system messages are sent to any channel. The default is disabled.
- Manage CommunityChange community settings
- Desktop
- Mobile
- Right-click the community tab, or select the community image in the sidebar.
- Select Community settings.
- Select the Overview category.
- Toggle System messages channel on or off.
- If enabled, select the text channel that should receive system messages.
- Select Save changes.
- Tap the community name at the top of the channel list.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Overview.
- Toggle System messages channel on or off.
- If enabled, tap Channel and select the text channel that should receive system messages.
- Tap Save.