Reactions

Manage emoji reactions on messages in your Chat SDK app. Users can add, remove, and view reactions on any message.

Message Actions vs. Message Reactions

Message Actions is the flexible, low-level API for adding any metadata to messages (read receipts, delivery confirmations, custom data), while Message Reactions specifically refers to using Message Actions for emoji/social reactions.

In PubNub Core and Chat SDKs, the same underlying Message Actions API is referred to as Message Reactions when used for emoji reactions - it's the same functionality, just different terminology depending on the use case.

Add & delete

ToggleReaction() adds or removes a message reaction. It adds a string flag if the current user hasn't added it yet, or removes it if already added.

Use this method for emoji reactions or other purposes like pinning messages to channels.

Method signature

This method takes the following parameters:

1message.ToggleReaction(string reactionValue)

Input

* required

Parameter	Description
reactionValue * Type: string Default: n/a	Emoji added to the message or removed from it by the current user.

Output

An awaitable Task<ChatOperationResult>.

Sample code

Add the "thumb up" emoji (\u{1F44D}) to the last message on the support channel.

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Get updates

To learn how to receive updates whenever a message reaction is added, edited, or removed on other clients, head to the Get updates section.

Get reactions for one message

Grouped reactions

MessageReactions() returns reactions grouped by value, with counts and user IDs. Use this to display aggregated reaction counts in your UI.

Method signature

1message.MessageReactions()

Input

This method doesn't take any parameters.

Output

Type	Description
List<MessageReaction>	A list of MessageReaction objects, each representing one reaction type with its value, whether the current user reacted, the list of user IDs, and a count.

MessageReaction contains the following properties:

Property	Description
Value Type: string	The reaction value (for example, an emoji like 👍).
IsMine Type: bool	Whether the current user added this reaction.
UserIds Type: List<string>	All user IDs who gave this reaction.
Count Type: int	Number of users who gave this reaction (equal to UserIds.Count).

Raw reactions

Reactions returns all raw reactions added to a message (with the user ID and timetoken for each).

Method signature

1message.Reactions

Input

This method doesn't take any parameters.

Output

Type	Description
List<MessageAction>	A list of MessageAction objects, each containing details of a reaction including its type, value, timestamp, and the user ID of the person who added the reaction.

Sample code

List all reactions added to the last message on the support channel.

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Get historical reactions

If you have Message Persistence enabled on your keyset, PubNub stores all historical info about messages, their metadata, and reactions.

If you want to fetch historical info about message reactions, use the GetMessageHistory() method. By default, when you fetch historical messages, PubNub returns all message reactions and metadata attached to the retrieved messages.

Check reactions

HasUserReaction() checks if the current user added a given emoji to the message.

Method signature

This method takes the following parameters:

1message.HasUserReaction(string reactionValue)

Input

* required

Parameter	Description
reactionValue * Type: string Default: n/a	Specific emoji added to the message.

Output

Type	Description
bool	Specifies if the message has the specified user reaction (true) or not (false).

Sample code

Check if the current user added the "thumb up" emoji (👍) to the last message on the support channel.

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