Social network Bluesky launched<\/a> support for group chats on Thursday, another feature designed to make the app more competitive with its larger competitor, X.<\/p>\n While Elon Musk-owned X recently doubled down on chats with the launch of a stand-alone XChat app<\/a>, Bluesky is only now catching up by offering a way for groups to interact more privately on its platform.<\/p>\n The feature, which is arriving<\/a> in the latest version of the social app (v1.124), is one of the first to deliver on Bluesky\u2019s plan to focus more on communities, rather than trying to be a social network where people post solely to reach a wider public audience.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a notable shift in strategy, and one that arrives as Bluesky\u2019s overall growth has slowed. Today, the network reaches some 44.8 million<\/a> registered users, compared with X\u2019s 600 million<\/a> monthly active users. If Bluesky can\u2019t reach the scale of competitors like X or Meta\u2019s Threads, it may need to find new ways to make its app attractive to would-be users, including by offering different forms of social connection.<\/p>\n The startup added support for messaging in 2024,<\/a> but it only more recently began offering encrypted chats<\/a>, and only by integrating the third-party messaging service Germ. Now, Bluesky is offering support for group chats of up to 50 people, its announcement states.<\/p>\n That\u2019s smaller than X\u2019s support for 1,000 members<\/a>, but it\u2019s a start. And the company says it may increase this limit in the future.<\/p>\n Group chat creators can manage their chats however they like and can decide who is allowed to participate, the company noted. They can generate an invite link that can be shared across the web, including in Bluesky posts where it\u2019s displayed as an embedded card. <\/p>\n Chat participants, meanwhile, can control who\u2019s allowed to invite them to chats \u2014 everyone, only people they follow, or no one. The default setting will be \u201conly people you follow,\u201d unless users select a different choice for DMs.<\/p>\n Sharing media in group chats is not yet supported, as it will require additional safety and moderation systems, Bluesky says.<\/p>\n In a series of recent posts<\/a> from Bluesky\u2019s head of product, Alex Benzer spoke about how Bluesky will be working to make its app more community-focused in the days ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, Bluesky is one big space. Communities will be smaller spaces inside that where you can go deeper and hang out with people who care about the same stuff,\u201d he wrote. Benzer also explained that the goal was to build more community features on the underlying protocol (AT Proto) with support from the wider developer ecosystem.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Bluesky, you\u2019ll be able to create communities, join them, post in them, and get updates,\u201d Benzer added. <\/p>\n The timing is particularly notable given that X announced in April that it was shutting down its Communities feature<\/a> because of low usage and too much spam. Bluesky, seemingly, is trying to pick up where X left off by catering to those who want more control and ownership over their online community experience.<\/p>\n For instance, Benzer noted that communities on Bluesky will get their own handle that doubles as a URL, like community-name.bsky.social or community-name.bsky.space. They\u2019ll also be able to be set it as either public, invite-only, or private, similar to the options available on Facebook Groups or Reddit.<\/p>\n With communities, Bluesky is ultimately betting that people are looking for an exit from platforms operated by Big Tech players, and could be enticed to explore more open technologies where they feel they have more control over the experience (and won\u2019t have their account disabled by rogue AI moderation systems<\/a>!).<\/p>\n Along with group chats, the updated version of Bluesky is also offering a new way to share profiles via a personalized QR code, similar to other social apps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bsky-chat.webp?w=680\")
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